


Deathless

by Kurojouou



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Dark, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fate & Destiny, Immortality, Legends, Magic, Marriage, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mythology - Freeform, Obsession, Obsessive Behavior, Old Gods, Reincarnation, Soulmates, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:49:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 33,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24941857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kurojouou/pseuds/Kurojouou
Summary: Arya Stark manages to send away every suitor for her hand, alone in a Winterfell where the Tully beauty overshadows her Stark looks, and she sticks out asdifferent, peculiar.Until one day Jon Snow finds her, and under a heart tree in the midst of a never-ending winter, destiny is forged.Inspired by the Russian folktale ofKoschei the Deathless.
Relationships: Arya Stark/Aegon VI Targaryen, Jon Snow/Arya Stark
Comments: 115
Kudos: 298





	1. A Hand of Fate

Robb Stark was of twenty-one moon days, a boy of infinite charm and graced by the handsome Tully features- auburn hair that caught the eyes as swiftly as his striking blue eyes. Robb was a man grown as long as Arya had known him. She was only five years younger, but Robb had always been _big brother_ and never just _brother_ to her. Robb was his father’s shadow in all but his looks. He wielded a sword as skillfully as would a knighted man far beyond his years, and even his arrows landed always on target, even if the oldest Stark boy preferred his longsword over any other form of weapon. He was to inherit Winterfell from their father, and ever since his birth everyone had groomed him for it. Their father had made him sit at his discussions with his bannermen, and Robb was an efficient listener, and even a better war strategist; although wars were a thing of the past now, and Westeros had been a continent of peace at least since Arya’s birth.

Robb had also been the first to leave; he had married Arianne Martell two years prior to Sansa’s wedding. Both of them had been a strange match, or so Arya had learnt from the whispers at Winter town. _Dorne’s Princess and the North’s heir_. They had married when Arya was ten; barely a girl, an ugly misfit who only wanted to ride around on horses and fight with wooden swords. Arianne Martell had been the most beautiful woman she had ever seen, not like her mother or her sister, but like a _princess_ , a beauty with golden skin and raven hair with a ever-persistent smile, one that made Arya feel smaller than she already was at ten- smaller than her mother’s reprimanding looks made her feel, and smaller than Sansa’s scowl at her dirty face had ever managed to do.

Arianne was also everyone’s favorite; Sansa looked at her with shining eyes, their mother held her head high for being the good mother of a woman everyone admired. _Robb was besotted._ He would be, Arya decided. He was the one who had convinced their father of the match. He was the one who had made Lady Stark warm towards the Dornish woman. In the end, it was Robb who had declared to their parents of his and his lady wife’s wish of traveling to the Free Cities. It had not been easy; Lord Stark did not want to allow his son to leave the North when he should be thinking more gravely on his responsibilities as its future Warden. Catelyn did not want to let go of her eldest son, even if it was evident that the pair would eventually return within a few years and this venture was far from permanent. Sansa seemed to be the one who was most pained by the revelation, distraught at the thought of losing Arianne, someone she would rather have as a sister than her own dirty little sibling who would never behave as a lady. Sansa had cried and cried, and had been consoled by Arianne through the entire fortnight that Ned Stark had taken to finally comply with his son’s request. Robb had left soon after; and both had bid farewell with sad smiles, and yet Arya noticed only Robb’s seemed to reach his eyes. After that, Sansa’s hatred of her had grown tenfold. At first Arya wondered at the cause of it- she certainly did not have any hand in driving Robb or Arianne away. She did not have to think on it long, however, for Sansa had one day scoffed as usual at her broken, uneven stitches and muttered,

“I wish Father had shipped _you_ across the Narrow Sea instead.”

Arya was not a weak girl. She could listen to Sansa for days without caring anything about it. After all, she had grown up with it. As long as she had remembered, Sansa had hated her- not that she did not have anything to do with it. She was brash, too quick on her tongue, wanted a sword for a name day present rather than a silk dress; she was dirty and ugly, with a long face that did not look anywhere similar to Sansa. She had hair that did not shine, eyes that did not captivate boys. She wore clothes that did not accentuate her womanly features. Most important of all, Arya was not a lady. Arya did not pray to the Seven like their mother did, and Arya was not pretty, Arya was not graceful, and Arya was just- _not._

It never bothered her. She had her swords, she had her bow and she had her father. Ned Stark favored her, and it was not difficult to see. He spoiled her with everything she could ever want. He would smile at her when she did something brave, and even when she made a big mistake that looked unforgivable at the eyes of others. He always kissed her first when they gathered to break their fast, and Arya never went to sleep without hugging her father. She would listen to his stories of the Old North, of the Weirwood Gods and the Stark Kings of Old. Arya would listen with fascination, imagining a crown on her father’s head and him sitting at the Winter Throne as the King in the North. She once told her father this, and he only shook his head with a smile and kissed her tenderly on her temple.

“The Kings of Westeros are the Targaryens, little one. The Starks bent their knee a long time ago, and it will stay this way for the ages to come. As long as there is peace, Arya, it does not matter who rules.”

Arya did not agree with him, but she would not go against her father and say it. She knew Rhaegar Targaryen was a good King, and a friend to Lord Stark, but Arya did not know the King personally, and so for her there was no one more suited to be King than her dear father.

"Lady Arya."

She looked up and nodded. Her lady mother had instructed her to wear the finest dress for today, a pretty embroidered lace skirt that could make even someone like her look decent enough. Arya sat straight facing the looking glass, and the maid started combing her hair. She winced as one by one her tangled locks came undone under the force of her hand. Arya bit her lip and stared at her own reflection, bearing the pain as her hair was being mercilessly operated on. The movement of the maid's hand made Arya's whole body jolt with pain, even her heart. She could take the physical discomfort, but her belly had not rested well ever since her mother had informed her of the guests that were to arrive by midday- one of whom was a potential suitor for her hand. She bit her lip so deeply that her teeth cut and Arya swiped her tongue across the bead of blood that glistened over her pink lips. Her hands fiddled with the edges of her brown dusty tunic that had once belonged to Bran, and it felt like her own skin had been ripped away from her when the maid had pulled it over her head, getting her ready to be fitted into the _prettier_ clothing that lay ignored on her bed. An unprecedented wave of tears hit her eyes when the skirt was tightened around her waist. Arya felt like a mare that was being groomed for the market. She felt like a baggage on her mother's shoulders and an exemplar of shame for the Lady of House Stark, whose youngest daughter was not pretty enough to be courted and was unmarried at the age of almost seventeen, at the peak of her youth. Sansa had had a dozen suitors already by the time she was fourteen, and it had been a matter of choice for her as to whom she would be most inclined to marry. Lady Stark had spent a long time of her life moulding Sansa into an unrivalled beauty who could make young maidens blush with admiration. Sansa had been just that, a woman whose tales of loveliness had reached far and wide in Westeros. She had been wedded off to Viserys Targaryen, a Prince of the Seven Kingdoms. Of course, Sansa would choose a Prince. She had the privilege to do it. Ravens asking for her hand had reached Winterfell from as far as Starfall, and even if Arya had thought that the Prince was nothing but a prick, Sansa had married him wholeheartedly with the blessing of the whole of Westeros. It had taken them a month to reach King's Landing, and another for the wedding to commence. It had been a decadent affair, and her mother had never looked so happy before in her life, even when Robb had married Arianne. The Sept of Baelor had been filled with people, and outside of it thousands of smallfolk had gathered to witness the silver haired Prince and his beautiful wife. Bread had been given to the people in plenty, and inside the Red Keep the festivities had went on for so long that Arya had half wanted to run back to Winterfell on foot. She had never seen her sister happier than she looked then, the Targaryen colors suited her. The red of her dress looked perfect with the Stark sigil sewn across her chest. She wore it with pride; she wore the Targaryen cloak even more proudly. She was a Princess now, and looked every bit like one too. Arya had never compared ever since her birth. Arya had never _belonged_ , not in the midst of the beautiful red-headed Tullys. She was just a mis-matched girl who looked like her father, and even her father was handsome. Sansa had called her a bastard once when she had been six, and she had almost believed it for a while, thinking that Lord Stark must have fathered her on another Northern woman and not her Lady Mother. She knew now that it was not true, of course, but that did not really change anything.

She was poked with pins all over as two maids simultaneously helped her into her dress and wound her hair in an elaborate braid and pinned it upon her head. Arya did not know whether they only meant to show her off to her potential husband or to marry her off that very day. She guessed for someone like her it would take greater efforts to make her look presentable enough. The skirt was tight around her waist and her bosom, and the bodice was sprinkled with stones. It had been Sansa's gift to her the first time her sister had visited Winterfell after her wedding, and Arya had not touched it even with a finger until then. She had once even thought to ripping up the dress and asking the seamstress to sew it back into a tunic but she did not want to risk her mother's wrath and disapproval. She had had enough of that already.

It took almost an hour for her to finally breathe a sigh of relief that the worst part was over. She did not have high hopes from Lord Bolton and his son as well, and only wished that her glares and sharp tongue would make him gallop back to the Dreadfort before the night fell. It had happened to a number of them. A Frey boy, a Glover, and Harrold Harrdyng of the Vale; they had come to her with eyes shining with ambition at getting her hand in marriage. Arya often wondered what could have made them look past her disagreeable appearance enough to think of wedding her, but she did not put it past ambitious men to lose the opportunity to cloak a Stark of Winterfell. Her mother had often told her that even if she took pains to show herself as unpresentable and unappealing, she would find many young lords who would ignore her efforts and claim to marry her anyway. At least, Arya knew, that was what her lady mother desperately hoped. It was not hard to identify the look of utter disappointed on her face everytime she looked at Arya. Two of her children were happily married, one was squiring with the Sword of the Morning; Rickon was too young but Arya knew her mother had ambitious plans for him as well, and here she was, an unruly girl with no hope for her future. Catelyn had once told her father that she was astonished at what she had done wrong while raising Arya. Arya had heard it all from the open crack of the door, and she had seen her father go silent at it. It was then she had learnt that even Lord Stark had started to think of her as an unwanted nuisance even if he always made sure to show her as much love as he had done since years.

"Alright, M'lady?"

She nodded, feigning a smile as kept looking at her reflection. She looked cleaner than she had in weeks, her hair looked like _hair_ for once and not a bundle of straw, her body smelled of freesias and honey and she had finally managed to wear a dress after many moons.

"My sweet girl."

Arya turned her head and smiled as Lord Stark entered the room with slow steps. The gray in his hair started to shine in the sunlight, and Arya had a mind to rub iron over it to full the color. She did not want to think of her father as growing old. It was too painful a thought of losing the one thing that kept her in Winterfell and stopped her heart from exploding into a thousand suns.

The maid left with a bow and Lord Stark took a seat at her bed. He accidentally sat on her tunic and chuckled as he placed it away carefully then motioned for her to come to him. Arya almost ran to embrace him, but her waist was too tight to do that, so she limited herself to walking and Lord Stark patted the bed for her to take a seat beside him. He held her hand as she did, and Arya's breath caught as he stared at her almost as if looking at a stranger. The shadowy gray of his eyes looked far away, deep in another thought that Arya was not privy to. She placed her hand upon his, only for the action to break the thread of his thoughts as her father smiled so heartbreakingly that Arya's earlier tears threatened to spill forth with greater intensity.

"My little girl," he said and clutched her hand harder. "Do you wish for me to send the Boltons back? You mother will have to understand. I will make it so."

Arya's eyes widened in surprise. She blinked back what remained of her glistening eyes.

"Do you not want me to have a suitor, father?" She asked, her chest twisting in pain. Her father did not think she was capable enough to be wanted by a man. He thought she was as hopeless as her mother did.

"It will be my proudest day when I let you be cloaked by a man who is worthy enough of you. But Arya, if you do not wish to be married now, I will not force you."

"Mother will be disappointed."

"Your mother needs to understand a lot of things." Lord Stark's eyes had that unreachable look again. "I see ghosts of the past when I look at you, child."

Arya took her hand back and stood up straight. Her eyes were sharp as she looked back at her father.

"Again, father?" She cried. She breathed harshly, and wondered if she would faint from the lack of air. "You have been telling me I look like Lyanna ever since I grew up. But what comes next, father? You never tell me what happened to her, and no one speaks of her except you and Uncle Ben." Tears pricked her eyes, hot and ready to spill. "Why would you say I look like Lyanna when I look like... _this_?" She choked on her words. "You do not get to tell me that I can put off my betrothal when every morning I wake up to see my own mother disappointed to have ever birthed me!"

Her father's eyes flashed. He rushed to her and held her face in both hands fiercely and protectively.

"The Gods made you in the image of me, Arya Stark, and the Winter Queens of Old. You have the North in every drop of your blood as does every one of your siblings. Your aunt-" he stopped. Arya felt guilty to make her father so sad. She pressed her hands above his own. "You are as fierce as your aunt. But my love, this fierceness has a price. Your aunt had to pay it dearly, at an early age. If I could, I would keep you here in Winterfell with me till I breathe my last, but I fear too much for you, my child. I pray you never have to pay the price for being what you are. I survived losing Lyanna; I cannot survive losing you."

Arya's head was muddled up with too much of everything, but she put it aside for the love that she bore her father and hugged him tighter than she had ever done. Lord Stark must have surely heard her heart racing so fast. Arya clutched onto him, wishing he would hold her like that for all her life. She did not want to pull away and have to think of all that he had just told her, half of which she did not understand in the least. Her father held her for a while, but it was inevitable for him to leave her. When he did, the looming gray of his eyes was gone.

"Do you wish to meet the Boltons?" He asked again, voice no longer laden with emotion.

"Yes."

He nodded, and pressed a lingering kiss on her brow. Arya held out a breath, almost panting, when he walked out of the door. The pins in her dress pricked more at her heart than they did at her skin. She felt out of air, clutching the bedpost violently. A taste of blood rose up in her mouth, and Arya groaned in pain, crying, but no tears fell.

✦✧✦✧

Ramsay Bolton was not handsome, or anything Sansa would describe a suitor to be like, but Sansa had always had high expectations. Arya did not fail to notice his pale eyes hover dangerously over the neckline of her dress as soon as they were introduced. His smile was almost too sweet to be considered true or benevolent, and yet Arya managed a smile at his direction, as she tried not to gag as he pressed a gentle kiss on the top of her hand, his eyes looking up at her like a predator. She resisted the whole of her body that ached to do the exact opposite of what she seemed to be doing. From the corner of her eyes, her mother looked like she did not approve, and yet Arya waited and waited for her to verbally say it to her but Lady Stark never did. As the Boltons were led into the Keep, Arya found her arm latching onto Ramsay's without her consent. His doublet was thick and dark, and his hair too long and straight. Arya's eyes roamed stealthily over his visage, trying to study in depth who Ramsay Bolton was, despite his unusual appearance. Arya had never been a girl to judge too easily, being on the receiving end of the stick for far too long in her life. She did not have the slightest intention of marrying Ramsay Bolton or even spending more time with him than what civility forced her to do. She would keep peace for her father until the lords would eventually and respectfully oppose the notion of a betrothal to her, and then she would go back to listening to her mother's criticism even if it would break her heart to do so.

The Boltons had arrived later than expected, and dusk had fallen till the time everyone found themselves inside the Keep. The feast was to begin soon, and her mother had yet again sent her away with another one of the girls to tidy up her dress and her hair. She had to endure yet another sequence of pricking and pulling. Her hands were sweaty and chest almost numb from being bound too tightly by the bodice of her dress, but she had no choice to endure the hardship until at least the end of the feast. The girl buttoned up her back, almost too slowly that Arya would have lost patience, but that day she had half of the spirits she usually did. Her father's words had left her belly a churning mess, and Arya would lie if she said she was unaffected by what he had said. Ever since she was around eight, she had heard the word _Lyanna_ on her father's lips and yet, no one in Winterfell but him seemed to utter it. She had been older when she had found out how her aunt had died at fourteen, and no one had taken her name since that fateful day, for the respect they had for Lord Stark and also because he had forbid it with a strong hand. Strange as it was, even her lady mother seemed to avoid the name like a plague. After a few years of reaching dead ends and no answers, Arya had acquiesced. Lyanna seemed dead for longer than she actually had been, but it never failed to unnerve Arya how her father always compared Arya to her, telling her how she looked as pretty, how she was as passionate. Once, when Arya had had a decent relationship with her mother, she had even asked her, but her mother had kept her mouth shut like a clamp, refusing to utter even her name as if it was a curse to do so. Arya sometimes wondered what it would have been like if she had had a aunt who looked like her, _someone_ who looked like her, a moon in the midst of all the bright suns, someone who could make her feel less like a sore thumb, less unwanted. But her dreams were dreams, and her wishes were futile. The dead were dead. Arya Stark was unloved by the living; how could she ever hope to be loved by the dead?

The feast was sumptuous, and Arya feared her mother had no intentions of letting her reject this match. It looked final; she was possibly tired of watching the back of every man that walked away from her daughter, and yet Arya meant with all her will to reject Ramsay Bolton as clearly as possible, and yet maintaining her father's reputation. The dais was not crowded. Almost half of the Starks were absent, and Rickon had been sent to bed because of his fever. She sat beside her mother and Ramsay, as the young lord passed her yet another of his smiles, one that made the hair on her arms stand involuntarily. Arya took a sip of the wine; _Dornish_. Arianne came to her mind, and her brother who was more Arianne's husband now than he ever was her brother. But who could blame Robb? Robb had been close with all of them, with her, Sansa, Bran and even baby Rickon. Robb had never played favourites, and yet as they grew up and Sansa started to estrange Arya more and more from everything that she did, she found herself slowly slipping away from Robb as well. He still practiced swords with her, but when Arianne arrived in Winterfell it was Sansa who graced his lady wife with smiles and kisses and charming laughter. Soon enough Robb grew more grateful to Sansa, and eventually he was too old to play with her. The games stopped anyway, with Bran being sent off to Starfall, and with Sansa refusing to act like a child anymore. She had Rickon, but he could not be enough. Then Robb left, then Sansa, and Arya realized she would have gladly withstood her sister if it meant having to not lose her brother.

"I must say, the rumours do not do you justice."

"Don't they?" Arya asked with a hint of amusement. "What do they say, Lord Bolton?"

"That you are overshadowed by your sister's beauty. I am confident that none of them have seen you in person."

"Or _you_ have not seen my sister." She wanted to laugh at him. Was he stupid enough to think that she would not see through his blatant lies; more stupid to believe that acknowledging her _beauty_ would result in her looking at him favourably.

"I like you, Lady Arya," Ramsay Bolton said. His eyes somehow made her very uncomfortable. Arya only smiled, keeping her eyes on the glazed pork in front of her rather than acknowledging Ramsay's unflinching gaze that brushed across her uncovered neck.

The feast went by too slowly. Her _suitor_ tried to talk to her about trivial things, but Arya felt herself grow more and more restless as she wanted nothing more than to go to her room and sleep. Her hand shook around the goblet as she was poured her fifth glass of wine. Her mother did not pay her much heed anyway, and the smell of Ramsay Bolton was not pleasing to her nose. She wanted the wine to make her forget that she had a man to please who would sooner buy her and take her from her home, and her parents would even allow it. Not for the first time, she questioned what her mother actually thought of marriage. Just because she had grown to love a stranger, did she believe that everyone would? Her father was a kind and gentle man. Did Lady Stark really believe that Ramsay was as thoughtful or kind, or did she not care that Arya could be raped and abused and mistreated and she only wanted to get the weight of her unwed daughter off her shoulders? Arya reached for the wine with a shaking hand and shuddered audibly as Ramsay put his hand over hers, cold fingers touching her skin.

She dropped the goblet in shock, eyes horrified and fists ready to strike. Ramsay had the gall to look surprised. The wine had reached down her dress and the red stained her pretty skirt like a scar, like an unwanted blemish that intruded upon the perfection of it. Her mother turned immediately, eyes throwing needles at her as she took in what she had done. She sighed in disappointment as Arya bit her lip, all too familiar with what would follow. Her mother's accusations that she could not handle herself for one evening, that she should have learnt her manners already, that she should be less clumsy. Arya had not meant to ruin it. She really had not meant to displease anyone, and yet it seemed that everything she did was just something that would make her more of a failure in her mother's eyes. She quickly stood up, tears ready to burst forth, half in anger and half in pain and cleared her throat to announce that she needed air. Nobody paid her any heed except Ramsay, her mother and her father. Arya wanted to look at him and wonder if she had let him down as well, but then decided that she did not have the courage. Without waiting to be excused, she rushed down the dais and pushed past a bunch of drunkard soldiers, one of them sending her a big grin. Arya bit her lip to the point of pain as she ran out of the Great Hall until her feet ached and she could feel snow on her skin. She waited for a breath, the cold Northern air giving her a semblance of peace and belonging, then sprang into a run again, grateful that the yards were empty because of the feast. Her hand burned where Ramsay Bolton had touched her, and she wanted to rip the skin off the bones rather than remember the feel of him. Her feet hurt from her boots so she stopped to throw them away, the cold be damned. Arya had learnt a long time ago that it was very hard for her to get a frostbite, and she had used it always to her advantage. She would wear them again when she returned or she would tear the cursed dress off her and wrap it around her feet. She did not care anymore what people would think; she was past the point of it. She could care less if they thought she was a monster rather than a girl. At least then, they would have the mind to stay away.

The Godswood felt so achingly familiar that she dropped to her knees as soon as she reached the heart tree. Her eyes were raw from holding in her tears for too long, vision blurry from the wine and feet aching. She touched them only to wince in pain; perhaps abandoning the boots had not been a good idea after all. Arya rested her face against the tree, her heart finally finding some semblance of a calm rhythm. The wind hushed past her ears, singing a song she was all too familiar with. Arya sobbed like a child, the skin of her temple brushing across the rough bark of the heart tree again and again, almost bruising. But she knew that here no one would reprimand her for her tears, or judge her for being too wild or not enough graceful. No one here would look at her like she was just a shadow of her sister, _nothing_. The Gods would never judge her; maybe the Seven would, but the Seven belonged to her mother and Sansa. She belonged to the Old Gods. She belonged to the North and the frost, not to the nourishing summer but to the never-ending and ruthless winter. She would not be judged for being a Northerner, and for not conforming to the Southern lady her mother wanted to be. Here, she could be proud of her unruly hair, of her pale, long face and here she could be a Stark. Just a Stark, not even Arya.

She smelled her own blood and her head hurt, but she cried, ready to spill everything out so that she would not have to do it in front of other people. She pulled one of the shoulders of her dress apart, as the buttons fell on the snow, grey dancing on white then disappeared among the snow. Arya breathed rapidly, looking into the red eyes of judgement that pierced through her soul. She kept her gaze even if she felt strangely unnerved, and slightly afraid. She sat down and rested her head finally on the tree, the tears retreating on their own, the wound on her temple biting and hurting, and yet the pain was nothing in comparison to what she felt.

"Oh, My Lady."

The intrusion was unwanted, and more so because it was Ramsay. Arya's growled inside her throat with anger even before seeing him, and yet it seemed that the wine had lulled her senses, and she could not even cry out to tell him to leave. He approached her, eyes otherworldly and white. Arya's breathing came out in soft bursts as she leaned back against the tree. Ramsay got down on a knee before her, his eyes seeming to take in her disheveled state. Arya felt self-conscious all of a sudden, trying in vain to hide her uncovered shoulder for the dress had been ripped and hanged useless on her side. She flinched and pressed back against the tree as he came closer, his unpleasant smell all over her senses yet again, almost making her vomit.

"Are you alright, Lady Stark?" He asked kindly, and yet his face looked contorted in lust, eyes lecherously staring at her chest, one hand outstretched.

When he touched her on her neck, Arya flinched back and a growl fell past her lips like a wounded animal. Ramsay looked surprised but he did not make any move to draw back. Arya's hand ached to throw a fist up his face but instead of that, she reached her hand down between her skirts. Ramsay's eyes followed the movement and he breathed out harshly, almost an animalistic growl. Arya's hand shook but she managed to find the blade she had strapped to her thigh some time during the day. She had known that her mother would be scandalized at the thought and she would never have approved, but it was a habit Arya had procured over the years, and yet before today, she had never been as thankful for the efforts she had taken to do it. Half of her senses were buzzed, and the remaining of them she had to sharpen, or else she feared she would lose her consciousness, and right now with Ramsay Bolton looking at her like a dead prey ready to be ripped apart, she could not risk giving him the opportunity.

Arya's hand was fast in pressing the blade against his chin. He looked astonished, and somewhat angry and Arya held herself up onto her, leaning into him as he leaned back, the tip of the dagger dangerously close to cutting skin, as Ramsay's icy eyes flickered with a darker shade and his usual saccharine smile melted away to contorted lines over his face, making his less handsome face even more ugly and hideous and almost monstrous, as he let out a yelp in anger.

"Bitch," he hissed under his breath, but Arya heard it. For a minute neither of them moved, and Arya wondered if a curse was all that he could manage. She was Ned Stark's daughter and they were their guests. She hoped Ramsay would have the shame and the honor, but she was soon proved otherwise when he clutched the dagger half by the blade and half by the hilt and yanked so hard that Arya winced, and her only method of defence was then hurled across the snow, far away from anyone's reach, disappearing from vision in an instant. Arya's eyes burned, her body still unwilling to let her take proper control as the echo of Ramsay's gritted teeth rang in her ear and Arya wanted nothing more than to just find a bed or fall asleep and forget, forget and forget. She could even sleep here in the cold, and she would not care. But the situation at hand was so unlike anything she had anticipated that Arya had no choice but to let the whole of her body tense, afraid of what he was going to do to her with her only weapon thrown away. If only she had been in breeches, she would have strapped another number of daggers to her waist, and she could have used them against him, but now every thought seemed futile as Ramsay's hand tightened around her throat and the other pulled the bodice of her gown harshly. Panic drummed in Arya's ears, her legs kicking and hands pushing, but Ramsay Bolton had shifted his weight to immobilize her and she growled out in frustration and anger as the top of her dress was torn with a swift motion, the silk ripped apart by a strong hand. He cupped her breast savagely, fingers digging in the flesh painfully as Arya's nerves were hit with a thousand spikes, sharp and pricking and dirty as Ramsay almost drooled at the sight of her, his thumb running brutal circles over the pulse at her neck as he moved his hand to rip the fabric over the other breast. Arya thought over the situation with panic. What could she do? She could scream but who would hear her in the vast Godswood? She was hardly strong enough to push him away with muscle strength. She made a mind to bite his skin off with her teeth, anything to make him move away from her so that she could run. Her back moulded against the weirwood tree, the hard wood sharp against her back as Arya looked from the corner of her eyes at the red weeping face, praying that they strike Ramsay down this very moment or at least give her an opportunity to run free and retrieve her forgotten blade.

"You will be dead before you can tell them what I will do to you," Ramsay muttered under his teeth. Arya growled, canines ready to pierce out whatever flesh it could come across. She cried out and advanced when Ramsay stopped, as if struck by something. Arya's mouth closed in an instant, and she looked back at Ramsay's eyes, wide and filled with unrestrained fear. He stepped back from her harshly like he had been hit by her. His eyes searched hers and the voice that came out of his mouth sounded low and terrified.

"You bitch, what are you-"

Arya's vision rang white. She thought that it was her drunkenness that had finally made her sleep or lose consciousness, even if it was dangerous to do so now with Ramsay Bolton's disgusting intentions being known and his body inches away from violating her. She wondered if she was going to die, in her own Godswood, beneath the shadow of the Old Gods who were supposed to look after her. How could they have allowed it, she wondered, thinking of her revealed breast and destroyed dress, the pain that was still shooting through her muscles at being handled so roughly.

A sharp cry of terror rang through the Godswood. Arya jolted awake as if woken from a dream, and the white she had earlier seen in a haze materialized into a big, monstrous animal; a wolf with its head holding Ramsay Bolton down who had now stopped screaming, and even gone dumb. Arya stared in shock as the wolf's muzzle went red, mouth sinking down over and over into Ramsay's body, the latter laying silent as death, blood staining the snow around him in a pool. Its teeth cut through flesh with minimum effort, and everytime its head raised up, Arya could see flesh hanging from its sharp and efficient teeth. She shivered as if she was in a dream, watching something unbelievable and yet, when the wolf looked up with eyes as red as the blood between its snarling teeth directly at her, Arya was not able to feel any fear, only a sense of overwhelming calmness now that Ramsay looked dead, and the wolf's snarl leveled to form almost a smile, its red eyes turning from fierce to still in a moment's notice. She should have run around and fled, and yet the wolf did not scare her half as much as Ramsay had done. Besides, she would rather be eaten by an animal than be raped by a man.

"Ghost," a voice rang through the silence. The wolf whined, a low and soft sound and moved away from the body. Arya measured its size in her head, it was more than a head taller than her, bigger than any animal she had ever seen, bigger than even her father's biggest mare. The only time she had ever heard of a wolf this big was in Old Nan's and her father's stories of old. The wolf did not move its eyes away from her as it stepped back and shook itself, snow spraying onto the ground with drops of red bright blood, almost beautiful. The blood had dripped down its chin and yet, it did not look menacing, only like something that had saved her life. The wolf retreated slowly with calculated steps, its feet gentle on the snow, when Arya remembered the voice and her eyes shot up, searching frantically.

He appeared from behind the wolf as the beast sat down with a yawn patiently, to make way. The man had dark hair and dark grey eyes, clothed in black from head to toe. His hair fell down to his shoulders and was covered in snow, looking almost ethereal in the contrast of their colors. Arya stared at him in fascination as he approached slowly, and she made no move. The cloak around his shoulders looked heavier than any one she had seen her father or her brother wear. He looked taller than them both, eyes grim and face muddled with scars, some red and some faded, almost disappearing. The scruff of his beard moved as she saw his jaw tightening, his grey eyes never leaving hers even for a blinking second. He walked with steps that were meant to not induce fear or panic, and his gloved hands rested casually on his sides. As he moved closer, she could make out the rings of light grey in his eyes, almost silver and almost lilac-purple at the same time, but the light moved to make them dark grey yet again. His steps were soft on the snow, careful in their approach, as he looked at her state but Arya did not find it lecherous or dirty like Ramsay's had been. Suddenly, aware of her half-nakedness, Arya covered her breast with her arms. The man had moved so close to her than she heard his breath hitch. When she made no move to stand up, he looked down at her with unreadable eyes and went down on both knees, falling with a thud, as Arya looked up at him through her now hot and cold eyes; hot from the tears and cold from the snow that delicately danced over her lashes.

He brought his hand to his mouth and bit his glove, pulling it away to bare his skin. The other hand followed, and they reached out, making Arya shrink back. When she did, the man's eyes went wide and he drew them back almost in shame. He moved to undo the fastening on his neck, the one holding his cloak in place, as he moved it away from himself and gently laid it upon her, covering her revealed skin, both his hands encompassing her neck in a tender touch that made Arya shiver. Still not leaving her eyes, one of his hands moved to her hair and searched around, Arya felt a jolt of pricking as he softly but quickly removed the pins in her hair, one by one her waves falling on her shoulder, and he continued to do so until every tendril of her hair was free, and she could not help but sigh at the relief.

"Who are you?" She managed to ask, her stomach in waves the more she looked at him. _Handsome_ , she thought. Not like Sansa's princes or Sansa's songs. He did not have to be. He was handsome because Arya felt her heart turn at it, her chest tightening with something she could not place. Almost like she had known this would come to pass but never actually believed that it would, like it had been a figment of an everlasting dream she could not even properly remember.

"Arya Stark," he said, reverently like a prayer. Arya's breath hitched; more so when he moved closer to her that she could feel the warmth of his breathing, smell the scent of wood and smoke from his skin. "I have come for you." He pressed a kiss on her lips, gently and yet demandingly, giving her no means to push him away. Arya, strangely, felt her limbs freeze in place. "I am your fate," he whispered, kissing below her chin, her tear-stained cheeks, between her eyes. When he drew back, his eyes glazed like black coals, and Arya forgot how to breathe. He pushed a hair away from her face and smiled for the first time, one that made Arya think he was the most beautiful man she had ever seen, one that made him look like half a man and half a myth from an old-forgotten legend.

"And _you are mine_."


	2. The Capture

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lost girl, a forgotten dream and a God of death

_The Wolfswood was hardly navigable by a grown man alone, even if he had been born and brought up in the North. Arya had never went there on her own, not without Robb or her father accompanying her; she had not went there more than twice, even, but now as her horse moved along the dimly-lit forest, Arya quietly contemplated her chances of going back to Winterfell alive, or at least with all of her limbs intact. The horse trotted along a thicket of black briers, and Arya’s earlier decisiveness turned to complete dubiety. It had not been her fault that she had found herself alone in the terrifying looking woods that smelled of damp moss and rotten things. She grudgingly moved her horse along with no destination in sight. It had been Lord Stark’s fault, and Robb, and her entire family. At this point Arya did not know whom to blame more; the people around her for not understanding her or for not_ wanting _to, or her terrible luck for always forsaking her at the moments she desperately needed its favor. She grunted in frustration as she pushed her heel onto the horse’s side, making it move ahead even if it looked reluctant to do so. Arya always believed herself to be brave, and so she tried her best to not think of all the dark and menacing things that lurked inside the woods; tried hardest to ignore the distant howl of wolves that seemed to move closer with every passing moment. Old Nan used to tell the children stories of the terrible creatures that roamed the woods that were hungry for human flesh and waited only for a chance to be able to attain a prey. Arya shook her head, cursing at herself for remembering those stories_ now _of all times. She was brave; she could manage to go home all on her own, even if she was undoubtedly lost and had not the slightest idea how to do it._

 _Her horse rebelled again; the traitor stopped walking, his hooves locking onto damp soil as Arya kicked it again and again to no avail. The sun had already set when Arya had left Winterfell in rage, but now the thick canopy made it difficult to comprehend whether it was dark or yet not; it was light enough that Arya could see, but hauntingly dark as well, as if it could be bright daylight and the woods could care less. Arya had only wanted a moment of peace and yes, perhaps a little bit to worry her family as well, if only to make them more sympathetic to her cause. She did not want to leave Winterfell, much less be sent off to Starfall. It was none of her business that Robb would be married to a Dornish princess, and just because she liked Lady Ashara and admired Ser Dayne, did not mean that she would be willing to leave her family for it. Sansa was more than eager to go, but they would not send her; she was already good enough of a lady. It was Arya whose manners needed refinement and who needed to understand southern customs because just being Northern was not good enough according to her mother. She really did like Lady Ashara; she was beautiful and Arya knew she was kind, but Arya did not want to go and live with her. She did not need to be taught_ anything. _She was good enough already, and if they did not like her then it was their problem and not hers. A frustrated whine left her lips when she remembered that even her father had consented to it. Even Robb, the traitor. Her horse had stopped as if struck by a spell, and in a fit of anger, Arya leapt down from the saddle and stared angrily at the animal. Everyone betrayed her, even her ride. She took the reins and pulled them, and the horse whinnied, the sound almost making her jump. The otherwise quietness of the Wolfswood echoed the sound, and Arya felt cold shivers on her skin. She bit her lip in sudden fear and lightly slapped the side of her horse, but the animal seemed stuck in place. She felt chilly air hit her belly through her cloak, where the tunic had come loose out of her breeches. The shadows seemed to be moving around her, eerily dancing through the trees like ghosts. Arya again wondered how she was supposed to find her way back, when she had rode into the woods without heed, and only the Gods knew where she was. She imagined wolves and shadowcats creeping in and eating her, her body lying cold on the banks of a dead river; her father and Robb finding it and mourning her. She bit her lip in frustration; she really did have an unnecessarily gifted imagination as her mother liked to say. She had not even brought a proper weapon, even if she only knew how to stab with the pointy end of a blade and it did not seem like enough of a defense against a pack of wolves, and Arya had only ever practiced stabbing bread._

 _Arya’s fears, which she wanted more than anything to_ remain _fears, seemed to come true when a distant howl rang through the dead silence. She frantically looked around, grip tightening on the reins as her horse suddenly seemed to come back to life as he thrashed wildly against her hold. He looked more panicked, to be honest, but Arya could not let him go. She could not possibly find Winterfell on her own, much less on foot. She could not have cursed herself enough. Her stubbornness had always put her in danger; this time perhaps it would finally lead her to her death. Another howl rang, and this time the horse pulled the reins free of her grasp. He galloped instantly, making Arya stumble forward, her arm brushing against a brier as the front of her wrist was slashed open by a thorn. Arya winced, blood dripping down her arm like a red stream of water, and before she could turn, the horse was gone. She heard him neigh in the distance, but she could not reach him even if she tried and her arm hurt. It was her unluckiest day, she was sure. Perhaps Sansa had cursed her for stealing her hidden stash of lemon cakes. Arya tore off a piece of cloth from her tunic and put one edge in her mouth, the other end held by her injured hand, wrapping it around her wrist with her teeth. The muscles at her stomach clenched as she felt the air hit her exposed skin, cold and sharp, and as soon as she managed to tie a messy knot, she pulled her cloak around her tighter. It was definitely dark, she decided, as she realized that the light around her was white and she had not realized. Arya stood there for a while, contemplating about what to do. Surely, her father would have starting searching for her by now or at the least sent someone after her. He might not be_ that _angry to actually have the thought of abandoning her, even if Sansa might have convinced him to do so. Blood stained the yellow of the cloth red and bright. Arya again remembered a story where a boy had died of slit wrists. Would she die too? In Old Nan’s stories, little girls died frequently enough. Arya was only ten. She had not even practiced with a real sword yet. Her aim was still not straight. Would her father even find her; the Wolfswood was bigger than Winterfell after all, and it took half a day for Bran to find her if she hid near the crypts._

_This time the howl was closer. Arya leapt off her feet and ran, away from the sound, no matter where it took her, suddenly not wanting to be eaten by a wolf after all. She could easily have strayed further away from Winterfell but in that moment, she would rather be alive than anything else. The wolves howled mercilessly and without pause, and her stomach clenched in fear as she tripped over branches and yet carried on, feet almost flying off the ground, the howls ringing in her ears. The sigil of her house was a direwolf; if only she had one as her own. She tripped for the third time; the moss had hidden the uneven ground, and Arya had never been a careful person. She kept her ears sharp for any call of her name; her father would never abandon her even if Sansa told him to. But all she heard were the wolves and a shrill shriek of a bird she could not identify. She ducked under a branch as she heard the sounds of hooves, and turned expectantly, ready to see her father’s face or hear his voice. The sounds rang louder but Arya did not see anyone; she almost called out for her father or Robb when a hand moved from behind her and wrapped itself around her mouth. Her eyes widened in shock as she tried to scream and struggle against the intruder but failed. She had not considered this; not at all._

_“It is alright.” The voice felt soft and warm on her skin, even if it was deep. The palm over her mouth was calloused. “Hush. Look.”_

_Arya breathed harshly and did not stop struggling, but she looked as the unknown voice told her to. The sound of the hooves intensified until they were in front of her; three riders, who looked nothing like her father or Robb or anyone she remembered from Winterfell. Her intruder had safely hid them behind a tree, and Arya went silent as the riders circled the ground where she had been, looking around with concentration. They had no armor on, or any sigil to mark them. One of them had dark skin and a scar ran down his face, taking away half of his upper lip. They did not look safe; they looked terrifying with their shaved heads, beards and intimidating eyes. Arya had already stopped struggling against the man at her back, as she held his hand that had wrapped around her mouth. Sensing this, the man let go, and Arya gasped, almost too loud that the man brought his hand back. Arya wanted to tilt her head and look at him, but she was frozen in place. They waited there, until the riders whispered something among themselves and went on their way, the sound of the galloping moving further and further away until Arya could not hear them at all. She held her breath, deciding whether to make a run for it, or turn back and see who the stranger was. In the end, she decided on the latter, relaxing her body as she made a movement to turn around, breathing steadily to show him that she meant no harm, and would not resist._

_The darkness made it difficult to mark his features, but Arya could see his eyes were dark. His skin was pale and hair short. There was an amusing smile on his lips, and he was so much taller than her that Arya had to raise her head to look at him. He looked older than her; older than Robb even. Arya stared at him for quite a while, wondering what a man like him was doing in the woods at such an hour, and alone, and why had he made a mind to hide her from those men, whoever they were. He seemed to not make a move while Arya kept studying him, silently, the lines on her forehead mutating with each one of her thoughts. He looked like a Northerner, but he did not look like just a common man, judging by his clothes and his serious eyes. He looked more like father when he discussed things with his bannermen, face rigid and hard. Arya looked down, realizing that the blood from her wrist had made his dark glove glisten, and so she blinked fast, making a gasp-like sound, meaning to apologize to him._

_"Are you hurt?"_

_Arya looked up, her half-opened mouth closed shut at the enquiry. His voice sounded distressed, like he was pained. Arya felt sorry all of a sudden, but she could not really place the reason for it. She simply shook her head and one of her palms held his gloved hand by the back of it, and she used the sleeve of the wounded one to wipe the blood that had gathered on his covered palm. She dropped his hand as she gave him a smile, looking up into his grey eyes again._

_"I am sorry I got blood on you," she said, and bit her lip. Suddenly, it crossed her mind that she did not even know who he was, and he could probably be a dangerous man. "Who were those men?" She felt his gaze on her, sharp and steady, and yet not threatening. "Who are you?" She took a step, making space between them. She was shorter than him, almost too much, but she would be because he was a man grown, and she was just a child. She wished for her father again, looking around her, as she waited for the stranger to answer._

_"So many questions, little one," he replied, mirth dripping off his voice. Arya frowned at the endearment; her father used to call her that, but she did not say anything. He seemed to be laughing at her, and it almost irked her. She took another step back. He must have noticed it because he stopped his soft laughter and his face went still again. "I am Jon," he said, with a soft smile. "Those men were not good men, and I did not want you to get in trouble." Arya felt a little relieved. He did not sound like a dangerous man. "You are hurt. Let me look. Please."_

_She contemplated it, but nevertheless held out her hand. She had always been easily trusting; her mother had scolded her enough for talking to everyone she could find. Jon took her wrist in both his hands and started untying the knot. Arya studied the sight of him. She liked his name; it sounded familiar and not strange. She also liked that he looked a little like father, or else she did not know if she would be able to trust him. She did not know if she should, but he had not hurt her yet, and he had saved her from the scary-looking riders. He was concentrating hard on her hand, and Arya found it interesting. He inched closer to her, and she almost felt a sense of warmth from his body, even if it was not touching hers. Arya worried at her lip, his hands almost so slow that she let out a sigh, almost telling him to hurry up. As if picking up on her unsaid words, he looked back at her eyes; his hair had fallen loose from being tucked behind his ear. He was pretty, Arya thought. Prettier than most men she had seen._

_He went down on his knees, and Arya blinked in surprise. His hand tugged at her wrist and she inched just a little closer, and his eyes were level with her wrist. He traced a thumb over the wound and Arya hissed, angry as she pulled her arm back, but he gripped her by the elbow, stopping her movement. Arya glared in anger, displeased, and Jon only kept looking at her, then reached inside his cloak to pull out a clean, white piece of cloth. He never left her gaze as he wound it around her wrist, and Arya's breathing returned to normal. He held her hand long after he had finished covering the wound, and her wrist did not pain anymore, only tingled briefly. Arya muttered a word of gratitude, pulling her hand back. Jon sat back on the snow, still on his knees. He motioned for Arya to follow but she did not. She wanted to go back home, even if she was curious about him. It was so dark that she could only make out his face; the moon had been hidden temporarily under dark clouds. Arya almost rejected him, but then she remembered that she could not get home all by herself._

_"Do you know the way to Winterfell?"_

_Jon only laughed again, softly, the same sound echoing through the silence. Arya did not understand what he found so amusing, and almost retorted back in a less patient way when he held out his hand._

_"Sit with me, my-" he stopped and sighed. "My Lady," he added. "I heard a search party a while back towards the east. They are looking for you, and will be here soon." He looked nearly sad at the thought of it. "Will you not keep me company till then? I will not let you go alone in the dark. Better you sit. Tell me your name."_

_"How do you know they are looking for me?" Arya asked instantly, a frown crossing her face._

_"A little girl lost in the woods. Of course they would come looking for you."_

_Arya did not want to believe him. Some part of her still did not trust him, but she had nowhere else to go anyway. The moonlight appeared again as she took a seat infront of him, knees pulled to her chest. In the glow of the light, he looked almost like a apparition and not a real person. Old Nan used to tell her about ghosts. But Arya doubted ghosts could touch people._

_"My name is Arya," she offered, deliberately not uttering her last name. Being a lord's daughter had taught her a few things, and being careful was the foremost of them all._

_"Arya," he said, the name rolling off his lips in a sigh. "Arya," he whispered again. She felt a rush of blood to her ears at his voice._

_"You do not have to repeat it," she muttered, kind of embarrassed. His chuckle rang loud like a wind chime, a pleasant sound that made her smile on her own, without trying. "Are you from the North?" The question was half-stupid. He looked more Northerner than her own mother, after all. But Jon shook his head and Arya almost did not believe him._

_"I am not from around here," he said. "I am a long way from home."_

_"Why are you here then?" She was curious, and leaned forward with a push on her knees. "The Wolfswood is dangerous. Something could eat you."_

_"Something could eat you too. You would be easier to chew." Arya scoffed at that. "Why are you here then, My Lady?"_

_"I am not a lady!" Her voice rang louder than she wanted it too. The woods still felt eerie, but Jon made her feel a little brave. "My family, they-" She hesitated, then decided to do it anyway. He was just a stranger. "They want to send me away to the South. I do not want to leave. I never want to leave! But they will send me anyway because my sister and my mother cannot stand me just being_ myself! _It is not my fault I am not pretty like them, or that I like what I like. I never tell them to be dirty with me so they should leave me alone too!" She let out a loud breath, and bit her lip with wide eyes when she realized that she had said too much. She looked at Jon and did not find anything in his face, anything she could comprehend; just the earlier silence and a rigid clench of his jaw. He was silent for a long time, just looking at her, as the calmness in his face changed and got replaced by something else. Anger? Guilt? Arya could only guess._

 _"You do not have to change for them," he said finally, the kind voice gone and replaced with a jarring one. He did not sound amused anymore. Arya's body tensed. Had she said something wrong? "You_ will _not change for them." His voice sounded angry. "I will not watch you get treated like this. I-" He stopped, stared at her as if he was in pain; she could hear the clench of his teeth and see the lines that marred his forehead. "I cannot. Arya." He stood up. Arya's pulse quickened as she almost jumped up on her feet. What was wrong? "Let me take you," he mumbled. "Let me take you, please. I do not deserve this punishment and neither do you. This wait is too long, too much-"_

 _Arya held out her hand to touch him, meaning for it to be a gesture of comfort, but stopped as she heard her name being called, distant and clear, breaking her concentration on the man before her. She could not understand anything Jon was mumbling under his breath, even if she heard all of his words. He must have heard the voices as well, for he stopped talking, a wildness flashing in his eyes as he held her shoulder and pulled her to him, Arya crashing onto him like a wave. The top of her head barely reached his heart. She pushed against him as he quickly put a hand on her temple, running it over her forehead and Arya's eyes went wide, a cold shiver running down her spine as her eyes started closing all of a sudden, a heavy weight crashing onto her lashes, making her unable to keep her eyes open. She held onto his cloak, and felt a soft press of lips on her hair as her vision blurred and she could not make out the person in front of her anymore. She heard her father clearly, his familiar voice breaking the quietness of the forest as the feeling of Jon's weight disappeared slowly and slowly._ _"I will come for you. I swear it," he whispered into her hair. Arya's mind became hazy. "Do not let them change you, Arya Stark. I will bring you home." She held onto him for support, clutching in hopelessly._

_The man. Stranger. Beautiful. What was his name?_

_Arya looked up. His eyes had darkened. She had memorized his face; now it looked unfamiliar. Her legs shook as he held her like she was weightless, and put her on the ground, sinking her head slowly down on the moss. Arya struggled to keep her vision intact, and screamed without a word when he walked away, taking every step backwards, still looking at her. Arya's fingers dipped into damp ground, mud sticking into her fingernails as she fell back on the ground without any strength left in her limbs. Finally, as her father's voice drew close and closer still, Arya made one final try to lift her arms together. He was long gone, whoever he was. Or was he a dream? Arya was supposed to be in Winterfell, eating berry tarts in her chambers. Where was she? Why did she want to sleep? She used her hand to roughly pull off the cloth from around her wrist, the fabric tearing at the middle. Her father's cry of her name rang loud and clear in her ears as Arya finally closed her eyes in a sleep she did not think she really needed, but seemed to overwhelm her, but not before sparing a glance at her healed wrist, where a long dark scar had formed, right where she was supposed to be bleeding red._

✦✧✦✧

Arya was staring at him for far too long, but the man in front of her made no move to stop her, and had not uttered a word after he had so confidently claimed her to be his. The very way his intimidating yet soft voice had spoken her name, had left Arya trying to piece together a scattered mosaic of feelings that had swelled in her heart at the sound of him, that had clenched onto the very bones of her physical body, the burning and hotness in her blood so unlike anything she had ever felt before in her life. She was desperately trying to see sense; trying to think and convince herself that this man was a stranger, who had a monstrous wolf moving at his instruction. She should be afraid of him. She should be terrified of his hands. No man could control a beast, but he hardly even looked like a man; he looked like a strange being carved of unknown enchantment, an enchantment that Arya felt creeping inside her own skin silently. She feared the worst. She feared it already had her; whatever sorcery it was. She was gasping for breath, half drowning in the darkness of the man's eyes and half already dead from the burning touch of his skin. When he took her name again, his eyes silently studying the whole of her, Arya blinked at him as if he was not real, like she could make him disappear if she believed it enough. But she could not; he was here and he was warm and so tempting that she forgot that she was in a Godswood in the North. She was burning.

"Do not look at me like that." She stopped studying his face and looked into his eyes as he said the words, watching the slow descent of the calmness in his grey eyes into a violent storm. His cloak felt heavy on her chest.

"Is he dead?" She asked, almost laughing at herself for thinking of Ramsay, of all people, at that moment. His jaw clenched so sharply that she wondered if the action made his face ache. She wanted to feel the roughness of his stubble prick her skin. Gods, she had _never_ in her life looked at a man so closely, and kept wanting to do it for the rest of her life. Arya was not a girl who believed that a man could be handsome enough to stare at, that someone could have eyes that could make her bones shake, or that she would _ever_ have the urge to kiss someone so much, that she would die if she did not do it. And yet, at that very moment, all of these things she had never felt, all of these passions she had dismissed off as useless as a child and a girl, rushed inside her heart and her brain like a ruthless winter storm, all at once, threatening to ruin the very string of truths that her life had been focused around. Everything in her life, each of her realities, shaped into the man before her, as if all of her life she had lived for nothing, and only breathed and ate and drank and _just been_ , and had not done anything that she was supposed to be doing and now, when she was looking at him, she was finally not just there anymore. _This_ was what she was supposed to do; looking at him, and wanting to kiss the breath out of his lungs.

"He was dead when he laid a hand on you," the man spat. His hand had softly started caressing her scalp, nails grazing against the surface making her toes curl against the snow. "Why do you do this? Why do you let them hurt you?" He brought his other hand and folded it softly over her temple. Arya remembered the blood there, and she bit her lip to not make a noise when his finger grazed against the broken skin. His eyes instantly moved to her lips, and his own trembled. The burning that Arya had felt still continued in its intensity. "I should slit their throats; all of them. Even your own blood. They trifle with you when they should worship you."

Arya's eyes widened in shock as she abruptly pressed herself back against the weirwood tree, eliciting a small growl, even if there was really no space left between her and the tree already. His eyes bore into hers with an unrelenting heat and yet Arya somehow managed to look away, even if it took her all of her strength. Somewhere in the back of her mind, her earlier drowsiness dissipated. She was more awake now than she had ever been.

"How dare you speak of hurting my family!" He did not reply, neither did he look like he was any more apologetic about what he had said. "Who are you anyway?" She almost had the mind to throw his cloak away. "Why are you here?"

His man's eyes flashed like a forest fire. Arya still felt like she was under some spell, like she had been bewitched by magic, and slowly everything inside her was changing and changing; like even her mind was not hers anymore, much less her traitor of a heart. His wolf still sat patiently, watching them both with blood-red eyes, looking nothing like the ferocious beast that had earlier ripped apart a man with his fangs in front of her eyes. The body laid lifeless on the ground, the snow falling quietly over it, little by little covering the trail of crimson that had spread around it. How long had it been since Arya had left the feast? Where was everyone? Had her father let Ramsay come after her? Had he not seen the depravity in his eyes?

"My name-" he stopped, and closed his eyes with a sigh. "Jon," he said simply. Arya felt a sharp tug at her chest, like her soul was trying to tell her something, and it was her fault that she could not understand. The name rang somewhere deep in her memory, but completely forgotten. "I have come to take you home, my love." His hand reached her cheek and he caressed it softly. Arya could not believe how a man could be so gentle and so harsh at the same time. "And your family; I would have long punished them for mistreating you, but for you I have held my ground. Only for you."

"They do not hurt me willingly," Arya quickly retorted. Whoever he was, she was not going to let him hurt her family under any circumstances. "They are different than me; that is all. They love me." She said those words keeping her father in mind, and Robb and Bran and Rickon and even her mother. She could not think of Sansa ever loving her; for her sister she would always be unwanted. _"This is my home."_ She watched a shadow pass over his eyes as she inched closer to her and brought his head so close to her own that Arya could hear his heart; or was it her own? She had never seen eyes change colors as much as his did.

Jon kissed the top of her head, the warmth of his lips making her shiver. "You are home when you are with me," he whispered. Arya gasped and clutched his arm as she felt the sudden lick of his tongue across her temple, where she was bleeding, the action appalling her as she closed her eyes. Gods, she must be going mad. She could feel the clench in her belly as his other hand braced itself onto the heart tree. "I have waited for so long. You cannot even comprehend the agony of it. You have been living in a place where they do not treasure you, while I was waiting for just a chance to take you to where you belong, where I can love you. I will spoil you; I will give you everything till you are tired of it. I will give you myself till you are tired of _me_. Do not tell me otherwise, Arya. It has been too long. I do not have the strength to let go of you anymore."

"I cannot leave," Arya said, panicking. The possibility exhilarated her, and yet the thought of leaving seemed like a sudden blow out of nowhere. She had only run from a feast, only for a moment alone with her Gods. She was not going to _leave_. "I do not understand. Why would you want me?"

When he tugged her chin up by a finger, she could again see the whole of his face, his lips now stained crimson. Arya flushed, the depraved act making her thrilled and ashamed at the same time.

"Because I love you," he said. "And you are mine, and I am yours, and so it has been fated to be since the beginning of time." He pressed a kiss against her mouth. Arya did not think she would have the strength to not kiss him back anymore if he did it again. "You are my Queen."

"I do not even know you. I am no Queen, Jon. I am barely a lady." His name on her lips felt surreal, and yet like it belonged there. It was a Northern name; she had heard it plenty of times before, and yet when she said it now, it materialized into only _his_ face. "How can you love me when you do not even know me?" She knew how love happened; not like how Sansa had claimed had happened to her and Viserys. Love did not happen after a day together, no matter how convincing her sister had sounded. Love happened like it did with her parents; slowly, with time, after years of being together and learning. How could this man claim to feel the same thing for her, when she had never met him before in her life. And yet, Arya realized, she was already halfway drowning in the abyss of his eyes; she had already acquired a taste for his lips, in the span of an hour. Was it love; if not was it anything like what he claimed to feel for her? How could he even love _her_? Love was for pretty maidens and beautiful women, not someone like her who was ugly and wild. There were never songs about a handsome man falling for a plain-looking girl, and Jon Snow was beautiful, he was heavenly, and he could not love _her_ ; not Arya Horseface.

"You will _not_ doubt my love for you." His voice was harsh and even his grip on her chin tightened. The lines on his face emerged again, making him look older than he was. When his lips met hers this time in a less softer kiss, Arya did not break her earlier promise to herself. She leaned up her upper body against his own and gripped his shoulders with her hands and kissed him as much as he kissed her, taste of iron sapid on her tongue. With a growl, Jon wrapped his hands around her head, her messy hair tangled within the crooks of his fingers as he kissed her hungrily, and Arya forgot to breathe the Gods knew for how long. She could only feel him, all of him; and tasted herself in him as much as she tasted him. Every squeeze of her hands over his muscles ended up in her trying to remind herself that she should not consider leaving Winterfell; Arya told herself she was not, trying to convince the ghost of a voice that nestled inside her mind. She bit Jon's lip. He pulled back and Arya almost whined like a upset child, when she saw what she had done to him. His eyes were dark pools of grey clouds and his mouth heaving like he was running out of air. Arya doubted she looked any better. His grip tightened when he leaned down to lick up her neck to her cheek, and Arya sighed.

"I will take you," he whispered against her throat, and the implication behind the words made Arya flush with warmth. "You will come with me willingly. I do not wish to coerce you. Do not make me." He came face to face with her and smiled, not his earlier one that was full of brightness. This one was captivating and reassuring. "You will be happy; I swear it."

"My father," she said, and hesitated. Was she really considering it? Did she really want to leave all of her life behind; for a man she had met not an hour ago. She did not even know Jon, she did not know who he was or where he would be taking her. He called her his Queen and yet, there was no Kings anywhere except the Targaryens. Everything she knew and believed was against him, and yet it felt like a small corner of her heart that she had never really looked into, yearned to just run away with him and be done with everything else. Arya found that the urge was growing tenfold with each second, now more so that she had tasted him. A stranger in the Godswood and she had kissed him, without even knowing who he was; Sansa would have been horrified and scandalized. "I cannot leave my father," Arya said finally, the thought too much to even think of. "You come out of nowhere and expect me to me leave everything behind?"

Jon's gaze softened under her glance. She could not understand how his emotions tumulted in the matter of a blink of her eye. "I expect it because you will do it. You will come with me, and you will let me love you and you will stay with me. If you refuse, I will take you anyway, but I do not wish to. I want you to want it. I want you to look at me and tell me that you would rather be with me than them, even if you do not know me; because that is how fate deals his hand. They have never deserved you, and they never will." He started caressing her hair. "You want to stay for your father, and yet your father never managed to stop your mother from telling you that you were not good enough. You do not wish to leave your brothers who did not think twice before leaving _you_." Tears pricked Arya's eyes as she listened to him, her mouth clamped shut. "Your father will sooner choose you a man who is worse than Ramsay Bolton and send you off to marry him, knowing that he could sooner turn out to be a fiend than a good man." She felt him wipe away her tears with his thumbs as she sobbed, her body shaking violently. "I have waited patiently for you, but not any longer. You will not have another suitor and you will not have another man look at you like that again before I hack their heads off. You will not stay here and cry alone; you will not listen to anyone lie to you that you are not pretty or unwanted." He finally took a deep breath. Arya was shaking with the truth of his words, even if she did not want to believe them. "I am your fate," he repeated, the words hitting her harder than it did before. "You will be mine, if you do not think yet that you already are, and I will love you until everything in this world is gone and born again. I am deathless but you will have my death, right in your hands and I will allow you; I will allow you everything that you want to do with me. Do you not want that? To be what you are, fully and without restraint. To let go of all reserve, and be the person you yearn to be in the deepest part of your heart." Arya had stopped crying, and his voice was leaving her torn. She wanted it, she realized. She wanted to leave; not just leave, she wanted to do it with _him_. "You will be a God," he added with a whisper.

She was silent. She did not want to be a Queen. She wanted to belong. She wanted to be able to do what she always wanted to do, without anyone telling her that it is useless. She wanted to hold a sword in her hands when she was thirty, without a husband telling her that it was his work and not hers. She did not want to marry a man she did not know because everybody told her to. She did not want her mother and her sister to criticize her for something she had no power over. She wanted to be left alone; and freedom. Arya looked at him, and remembered his promise. She wanted to be wholly and completely free.

"What if I want to come back?" She asked finally. The recognition that she had made her decision made Jon's face light up like a child's. Arya had almost forgotten about the time. The night was growing colder. "You told me you will let me do anything. What if one day, after one moon or ten moons, I want to leave you and come back and never return. Will you let me?"

She felt his hands on her go tense. He avoided her gaze, as Arya watched the way her words had left him shaking. The notion that she had hurt him left her guilty, but at the same time she found no remorse in asking him. It was as if he had taken her apart and put her back together in a completely different manner than she had been, and now she was half the girl who had been crying under the heart tree, and half the girl he claimed he would make her.

"You will not want to leave."

"What if I do?" She persisted. Jon's hands were trembling.

"You can do what you want," he said simply, but Arya heard the tremble in his voice. She felt regretful as she held his face in her hands and made his eyes finally rest on hers. Arya licked her lips, watching the way his gaze tightened at the sight. Her fingers traced the line of his jaw.

"Where is your home?" She asked, softly. Jon's earlier tension dissipated.

"Not anywhere in your world." A thousand questions ran through her mind.

"Who are you?" She asked again. Jon smiled and stood up, holding Arya's arms as he pulled her up with him. Her feet felt numb from sitting too long and Arya stumbled until he caught her. He waited till she managed to balance herself and Jon wrapped his cloak around her completely as she straightened. He was bigger than her, so it engulfed all of her body. Arya was thankful for it, but looked on in evident surprise as he did not seem to shiver with only wearing his tunic, even in the biting cold. Arya felt a sense of comfort as he was holding her, and she looked around the Godswood. It seemed as if time had stopped, for she could barely remember for how long she had been in there. It seemed like yesterday when she had drank at the feast. Her eyes quickly darted to Ramsay's body, lying dead in the cold. His eyes were open as his entrails hung out of his abdomen. His neck was cracked, as his pale eyes looked terrifying in their lifelessness. One of his hands had been ripped away at the elbow, and laid a few inches away from him. The sight was gruesome, and yet Arya felt no remorse. She could only imagine how many times he had done to other girls what he was on the verge of doing to her.

"Do not look, my love," Jon said, voice thick with worry. She shook her head. She was not afraid of death or blood; she had seen plenty and she knew the necessity of it. She clutched onto Jon's arm as if to urge him to tell her what she had asked. He understood. He held her chin with her fingers and turned her face towards the heart tree; the weeping face seemed to be looking right at them. "I am them," Jon whispered. Arya held in a breath.

"You are-" she stopped. It sounded stupid even inside her head. Stupid and unbelievable. And yet, Jon was flesh and blood and warm. "It cannot be."

"But it is." He made her look at him. "There are many of us, and I am one of them. You will learn everything in time." He traced her lip with his thumb. Arya licked the pad of it with her tongue.

"It is all too much," Arya mumbled.

"You do not have to be scared," Jon assured her.

"I am not," she said truthfully. "But it still is too much." Jon sighed against her forehead as he held her. Arya felt a sudden rush of fear inside her. Was she really going to leave all of it? What would they think she did? Would they think someone had taken her? Would they look for her? Would they think she had killed Ramsay and made a run for it? She looked at the corpse again; it was ravaged. Surely, they would not think that she could do that, unless they believed she was a beast or a witch. Arya wondered if witches were real too; she would not be surprised at it anymore.

"Ramsay," she began, "he looked terrified when-" She felt herself tense. "When he was touching me, and he stopped. Something scared him." Jon let her go as he stepped back, and Arya instantly felt the lack of warmth. Somewhere in the back of her mind it rang like a warning; she was already starting to hate the absence of him.

Jon turned to his animal, the wolf holding its head up obediently, and also lovingly. He scratched the back of its ear as it made a whining noise, and Arya could not help but smile. She noticed Jon was looking at his wolf fondly. "He heard his death," Jon said. "He heard Ghost." The wolf nuzzled against his leg and looked at Arya. She almost reached out to muss his fur but she did not. _Jon killed for me,_ Arya realised, the thought hitting her like a rock for the first time since Ramsay's death. She clutched his cloak tighter around herself.

"We have to leave now," Jon reminded her. Arya felt the hesitation in herself, and yet somehow she knew that it was what she wanted to do. She could come back; Jon would not stop her. She would miss her father. Gods it hurt to think of not watching him smile. Jon must have sensed her discomfort. "My love," he whispered to her.

"Where are the horses?" She asked. He smiled as Arya arched her brow. "Do you want me to go on foot?" She asked sarcastically. Jon inched closer and mussed her hair softly.

"We will not ride," he said. "Or walk. My world is not in yours." He kissed the top of her head. Arya had earlier felt her wound burn, now it had stopped hurting. "And you will have to sleep through it." Arya laughed aloud. Jon just gave her a hint of a smile. Her eyes went wide.

"What do you mean _sleep_?"

"The way to my kingdom is not for the eyes of a human," Jon explained, hands softly caressing her own. "It is carved of magic. It can harm you." At Arya's reluctant look, he wrapped the furs of his cloak tighter around her neck.

"Are you magic too?" Arya asked curiously. She remembered when Old Nan was alive, and she used to tell her and her siblings stories of how magic was real centuries ago. Sansa loved the stories where princes rescued maidens by using magic spells, and Arya loved to hear the stories of warriors who used spells to win wars and conquer lands. During a history lesson, the Maester had told her that the Targaryens could once wield magic, back when they lived in Valyria before the Doom. Old Nan also told stories of the Old Gods of the North, but their magic was not spells that turned men into goats or defeated monsters or forged weapons; their magic was deep and ancient. As a child it had been too much for Arya to understand. Now suddenly it felt enchanting to her that she knew Jon, _a God_. All over again, Arya wondered why he had come for her and not any other pretty girl, even Sansa.

Jon simply nodded, and started to kiss the whole of her face, like he had done in the beginning. Arya closed her eyes, feeling the softless of his lips dissolve into her skin. How could someone who looked like winter itself feel so warm that it made her insides burn. "So are you, Arya; as much magic as I am," he said softly. She was too mesmerized by the feel of him to ask him any more questions. She sighed into him, letting herself forget for a minute the consequences of her actions. Jon pressed a hand on her forehead, and Arya's earlier drowsiness returned, and suddenly her arms and her legs and her whole body was too heavy. She feel onto Jon as he wrapped his arms around her. "Sleep now, my love," he whispered in her ear as Arya felt him carry her up in her arms, as if she weighed nothing. Wrapped up in his cloak, inside his arms, Arya embraced the heaviness of her lids. He pressed a kiss on her hair and clutched her closer to his body. Arya looked at the Godswood through hooded eyes, memorizing the place in the back of her mind, the eyes of the heart tree silently judging her. She mumbled a small prayer to keep her family safe, but she did not know anymore who her Gods were; the ones her father believed in and she had previously worshipped, or just Jon. She closed her eyes and remembered Lord Stark. _I survived losing Lyanna; I cannot survive losing you._ She gripped onto Jon. She wanted to cry and run back to the Keep, but at the same time she did not. So she slept instead of letting the guilt consume her, as she heard Ghost howl into the long night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A slow-chapter but it was necessary to establish Arya's motives behind her leaving. As this is roughly based on a folklore, the girl running away with the hero (?) trope was necessary but at the same time this is Westeros, and _Arya_ , so would she really be just a girl who swooned over a man and just left? I tried my best to let Arya weigh her choices and convince herself of what she really wanted to do. This is more fairytale-esque than reality. After all, most mythological stories have no real reason why some people do what they do in those lores. Also, this will not be a slow burn, and rather an exploration of their relationship from a darker, more selfish point of view, considering Koschei is one of the darker folktales out there.  
> I was overjoyed by the response on last chapter. Hope this one lived up to the mark. Thank you for reading.


	3. Old and New

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arya's new world turns out to be much like her old.

When Arya woke up, she almost believed everything to have been a figment of her ceaseless imagination, and waited for her mother to rush into her room as usual. It would not be the most vivid dream of her life by far; in fact she had half the mind to fall back into whatever sleep was now left, and try to place herself back into her all too familiar bed inside her warm chambers at Winterfell, which was one of the first that daybreak would brighten. But the familiarity of her small bed and the smell of wildflowers that always lingered on her bedsheets were gone; the one she was sleeping in felt lighter, softer, and when she stretched a leg out of habit, it did not hang off by the edge of it. A dream she wanted it all to be, but when Arya opened her eyes and they started to adjust to the dimmer than usual light, she understood that perhaps her mind had not made it all up after all. She yawned and stretched, her limbs resisting against the movement as they fell back onto her sides ready to be put to sleep again. But Arya had awoken, and she was half remembering the events of the day that had passed, which now felt like memories of a hundred lifetimes ago. The feast, her father, her suitor who laid dead under the eyes of her Gods, a wolf that had smiled at her through teeth dripping with flesh, and a man she had kissed until her heart had stopped beating. She heard wind rushing past her ears, singing hymns she was used to hearing when she sat by the Heart Tree back in her Godswood, her head resting on her father's shoulder. Her heart clutched in agony as her father's voice rang inside her mind like a relentless and loud song. Arya tried to keep it hush, and tried to direct her thoughts some other way. The bed dipped under her with her every move, and she pushed herself up on an elbow to stare at the wall beside her. A large tapestry hung on it; an embroidered weirdwood tree with a dark grey trunk and red, bright leaves that immediately made her remember her mother's rich Tully hair. The tapestry was twice her height and when Arya looked closely enough, the red leaves danced in her vision. The edges of the tapestry were filled with lettering she could not read, in some unfamiliar language. The wind kept singing in her ears, and Arya had to pull her eyes away from the tree, knowing she was staring for way too long. A window on the same wall gave her a view of the sky, and it looked much like the same one back at Winterfell, with its white, half-grey clouds. She sat on the bed as her feet touched the ice-cold stone floor and clenched her teeth, pulling them almost all the way back up.

A soft sigh that sounded nothing like her own reached her ears, and Arya immediately turned, alert in her movements and reaching for the knife that had been tucked under the pillow of her own bed, but then realized in vain that she was not home. Her eyes opened wide when she saw Jon, eyes closed and clearly in a slumber, on the other side of the chamber in a chair. His head rested half on the chair and half on the wall behind him, and the light made soft shadows dance across his face. Arya stayed stuck to her place, her heart beating loud in her ears when she looked at him. This was no dream. This was real, and he was too. Ramsay had been real, and Ghost, and she was not going to wake up any time soon. This had been her doing. Her leaving had been her own decision, and she did not know where she was, or what she was supposed to do there or if she was even supposed to be there. Arya placed her feet gently down on the floor, one after the other, careful not to make noise, imagining it was just another day and she was sneaking out from one of her Septa's lessons. She tiptoed to him, to Jon, suddenly conscious that she was in a shift, and remembering that it was clearly not what she had worn the last time she had been awake. Sleeping, Jon looked different than she remembered him. She could no longer see his eyes that changed color every second, and could no longer hear his voice or feel the warmth of his hands. Sleeping, he looked like just another man, like he could be another suitor- a lord her mother had picked for her, and someone she could finally not be opposed to, like she always had been. A hotness crept up her neck and her cheeks as she held out a hand, gently, watching every rise and fall of his chest with every breath he took, watching the scars she had tried to remember the night before, watching his hair turn around the tips of his ears and then turn again at his nape, dark like coal but shining. His face was long and solemn, and looked like he had not smiled in ten moons, even if she had seen him beam at her only the night before. She bit her lip to stop her breathing, because it was now almost too loud for her own ears. His hands laid on his lap, one crossed over the other. Arya tried to be as quiet as possible, and as soft as she could, but she could not even try to stop herself from wanting to touch him; almost as if she was still unsure that he was real, as if she still doubted that he was who he said he was- A God, and he had claimed her, stolen her, and she had let him, leaving everything behind. 

She had barely touched him, barely grazed the tips of her fingers against his skin when Jon woke, almost too quickly, making her suck in the breath that she was already holding. Instinct made her try to rush back her steps, but he caught her by her wrist, eyes blinking once, twice and then his mouth curving into a smile, a smile that made her so warm it was uncomfortable. Arya did not miss her heart's strange reaction to Jon; she knew it was not usual for someone like her to trust a man so blindly, and it did not pass her notice either how much he seemed to have a hold on her even if she barely knew him well. But still she could not shake off the feeling of belonging when she looked at him. It was not necessarily a good thing; something inside her warned her against him just like it had warned her against trusting him blindly, falling into the waters of his unknown magic and giving herself the permission to be swept away. Jon's eyes waited patiently and ran over her own again and again. She wondered if he could read her thoughts; she would not be so surprised to be honest if he could. The rough fingertips of her God caressed the underside of her wrist, as Arya waited for him to say something. Could he sense her regret too at leaving her home? 

"I have only seen you like this in my dreams," he whispered, the warmth of his breath falling on her belly, burning her skin through the layer of her shift as he leaned down towards her. He brought her wrist to his lips, pressed a chaste kiss there, and holding both of her hands this time, tugged her to him so quickly that Arya had to balance herself with her elbows to not fall all over him. She cursed under her breath, and it made Jon laugh. "Do you like being here?" He asked, and he sounded like little Rickon. He sounded like a child intent on pleasing her. He pressed his face more into her belly, and Arya's voice trembled in a sigh, unable to figure out how to respond. "I will change everything if you do not." 

"I have not really seen anything, except-" she replied, finally finding her words. At her response, Jon rubbed his nose against her belly, and Arya's legs shook at the caress, warmth running through her being. "Is this your chamber?" Jon looked up at her. Arya had not remembered his eyes as being so bright, and for a moment she let herself believe that he meant it. He loved her. He looked like a man in love with her. He looked like he could burn the world for her, and she did not doubt it. After all, he had already spilled blood in her name, and it had not even been a full day since they had been together. She wondered if she had made him as happy as her mother made her lord father, or if she ever could. The memory of them pierced her warm heart with knives of ice, and Arya tried to not dwell on them; it only made her realize the gravity of what she had done. 

"It belongs to the King," Jon said, having now leaned back against his chair, his fingers still dancing over her waist, ghosting unknown patterns delicately. "And the Queen." Arya's own hands had somehow moved to rest around his neck. She tightened them as his right hand found the swell of her backside and brushed over it softly. Jon's eyes burned even if they were dark. She could not believe that she had earlier doubted about how beautiful he was. "This is yours. Everything here is yours." He moved up at once, suddenly, and made Arya stumble back and fall onto the bed, him above her. The amusement did not leave his face as he pressed his head to her belly again, then chuckled against her. "I hear your stomach growling in hunger, little one." Arya's eyes widened as she moved to push him away, only for him to push back at her and bring his face up close to her own, noses almost touching. "I should let you go and eat." 

"You should. I am not a pleasant sight when I am hungry." 

He rubbed their noses together. "You are always a pleasant sight." Arya cleared her throat, not used to compliments being thrown her way so easily. All her life no one had ever claimed to love her like Jon had, or even looked at her with half the devotion or made her _believe_ that she was beautiful with his words. Perhaps her father did love her much, if she did not take his disappointment at having an unruly daughter into account. Jon only knew her a few hours, and she was already lost in him, so much that even if one part of her heart ached for Winterfell, the rest of it was rushing, ready and exhilarated at the very sight of him, and in anticipation of all that he had promised her, and more. She combed her fingers through his hair, watching as he seemed so calm, his locks tickling the edges of her palm. "I want to show you the entire kingdom. It will take a while, but I want you to love it here." 

"I think I will," Arya said instantly, believing herself. For some reason the words slid off her tongue like liquid, without even a bit of hesitation. She tugged on his hair, and Jon looked up. "Show me your magic." 

Jon moved off her slowly, not before kissing her on the belly again. He held out a hand for her, and Arya held it, their fingers intertwining, his fingers cold but comforting. She pushed herself off the bed, and Jon guided her to the window, one hand resting on her waist and the other leading her along by her hand. They moved to it, the high arch of it untouchable by either of their heights. Arya saw the sky clearly now: the clouds had moved to let in faint sunlight, and yellow light brushed over the grey. So much like Winterfell, and yet she was so far away. Jon nudged her to look down, and Arya held his hand tighter as she did. For a while, Jon's home looked like any other Northern castle, with strong walls surrounding the Keeps and full of people, even if it looked larger than most. Arya looked around slowly, taking in the sight of everything in its newness, in its promise to be her home. Jon kept his head rested on her shoulder, dipping it down to kiss softly behind her ear, his hands rubbing circles on the back of her own, his touch turning warmer and warmer with every passing moment. She had not envisioned what she thought his kingdom to be like, but she had expected everything, or at least told herself to be ready to see anything, even if it would have seemed unbelievable. What she had not expected, and had hoped for, was a place just like any other in the North, with snow and grey keeps and laughing children, and Arya felt grateful for some reason. Only after accessing the whole overlooking yard did she notice something strange, and Jon caught her reaction, leaving her hand to push her hair off her back, over one shoulder, his fingers catching in her tangles as he moved them gently. Arya stilled in his arms. 

"How is this possible?" She gasped aloud, realization slowly dawning on her. 

"Winterfell was built slowly," Jon said softly in her ear. "Years after years, but the foundation of it was laid by Brandon Stark. The children who helped him were born not far from here." Arya watched with wide eyes, looking over everything as if for the first time. That is when she gathered where she and Jon might be standing, and when she looked down at everyone below, she had a thought that she was right at guessing it. "Most of it is different, but Winterfell was built in this image. The Keeps are different, and the place itself but the castles were meant to be mirrors of each other. The Starks were to live in the image of the castles where the Old Gods themselves lived. But humans are humans and we are not. So everything did not go as planned." 

"So this is the First Keep?" 

Jon nodded against her hair. "I was in doubt whether it would be a relief to you or a burden to see such similarities of your old home here. Does it pain you?" 

Arya shook her head, and felt his arms around her tighten in reply. She had half a mind to tell him that it did indeed pain her, that it was cruel of him to take her from her home and then bring her to a place which looked half like Winterfell itself. But she did not have to hurt anyone but herself, and she did not want to. She had come of her own will and Jon had not forced her, even if she knew in her heart that he would have taken her either way. But the weight of her decision, heavy or light, was for her to bear. Jon could not understand, but he did not have to. 

"You do not have to lie to me." He pressed a hand on her belly, brushing it up her skin as his hand ghosted over the swell of her breast. "No lies between us, Arya. Ever." She sighed, ghost of this touch reaching everywhere, even down her stomach. "Even if the truth hurts us, burns us or destroys us. You will always tell me everything." She closed her eyes. His words sounded equally like a resolve and a threat. "Promise me you will." 

"You seem to know already if I do not." She pressed herself back against him, hearing a sharp intake of breath, and wondering if his blood rushed like hers did. "Now, will you let me go eat or do I have to fight you to leave this room?" 

"Maybe we should make a feast of each other instead," he whispered, his tongue licking her neck as Arya clutched his hand that rose up to softly squeeze her breast, making her warm between her legs. She turned around in his arms, surprising him as she grinned, all teeth and licked her lips, and Jon's eyes darkened, his mouth curving. 

"Or maybe you should let me go before I really do start being unpleasant. My Lord, My King. What should I call you?" 

The silver in his eyes burned. The gentleness in his face left to reveal a wicked shadow that covered his eyes and moved past his lips, making him look like an entirely different person. Arya felt it again, that strong urge she had felt underneath the weirwood tree- to kiss him whole, unashamedly, until she had sucked all the air out of his chest. The cruel thought made her shiver, but it was mostly because she wished that he wanted to do the same to her, and that unlike her, he would have the courage to do it. 

"Yours, Arya. Everything else is pointless and irreverent. Whatever you call me, call me yours, and I'll obey." 

"You do not have to _obey_ me." She was half aware of the hand that reached underneath her shift to touch the underside of her bare breast. 

"Oh, I _will_ obey you, little one." He squeezed her teat again, harder and Arya moaned, pleasure rushing between her legs. "And you will _love_ it. I will make you my queen in front of everyone, and marry you under the heart tree." Arya wanted _so much_ to tell him to stop talking about marriage, but all she could do was close her eyes and moan, feel his fingers kneading her nipple, and brush her legs together as a result of his otherworldly torment. "And when they are done putting a crown on you and I am done cloaking you-" He bit her neck with teeth, her breath stopping for a whole moment, and she thought she would die right there. She did not know how she had ever worshipped any God but him. "I will take you for all the days and nights to come. We have to make it up for every day we spent apart; for every day that we both woke up in empty beds without each other." 

"Why didn't you come before?" She gasped, biting back a moan. "Why did you wait for so many years?" 

Jon stilled. Arya panted, her lower lip chewed bloody by her teeth as her lover moved away from her- hair tousled, cheeks flushed in a delicate crimson, and eyes darkened to almost black. He did not say anything; only stared at her like he was having his fill of her. It took a while for Arya to gather herself together, to straighten her shift and steady her breath, and all the while Jon was silent. When she held out a hand to him, he brought it to his lips and kissed it fervently. 

"I had no choice, Arya." He sounded sad, dejected, and disappointed. He gulped audibly, then ran a hand through his hair, fisting it softly then giving her a half-managed smile. "Come on. If I keep you hungry any longer, you will run back to Winterfell for want of food. I could not bear you leaving." 

Arya did not miss his unwillingness to answer her question, or the sudden change in his demeanor. She decided that if he wanted her to be honest with him, over life and death, for all things, then he should do it too. But how could she coax a secret out of a God who had lived for as long as time, and she was just a human who did not even know half of what was actually going on around her. For now, she wanted to trust Jon, and she wanted to give him the chance to be honest with her, even if he will have to spill a thousand secrets to do it. And for now, she just wanted to focus her mind on something she had actually done before today, and just eat till her stomach calmed, even if the rage inside it was not due to hunger for food. 

"I am not going anywhere," she said, and managed a smile. 

"No," he said, jaw clenched tightly, branding his words with a fierce kiss on the nape of her neck, burning hot on her skin. "You are not." 

✦✧✦✧

Arya expected Jon to want her to dress like her mother had, in dresses that flowed and made it hard to breathe, like she knew every maiden dressed for their betrothed, but when a chamber girl brought her a tunic and breeches that was far larger than her size, the scent of smoke and earth and _Jon_ lingering on them, she rejoiced for the first time since leaving, her chest fluttering endlessly at the thought that he had not lied. He meant to let her be; he meant to let her be brave, let her be Arya, and not just some girl he wanted to marry. Had her mother managed to put a tunic in her bed even on one day in all her life, Arya would have loved her more and perhaps something as trivial as letting her wear what she wanted to would not seem like such a privilege. Was she Jon's betrothed now With all his claims of wedding her and making her his Queen, she did not doubt his intentions in the least. What worried her more was her own determination to not wed all her life not wane at the thought of being his wife. Jon understood her more than most, but would Jon understand her hesitation at a marriage, at being someone's wife, at being a lady of a house, even if he himself was far from just a lord. Her mother had tried her best to turn her into a suitable maiden who would make some lord a very fitting wife, and yet Arya had not managed it in more than half her lifetime. Could she do it for Jon? Did she even want to? As she put on her tunic over a new shift, she traced the lines of an indentation at her neck, the mark of Jon's earlier passion, the shape of teeth bruised sweetly into her skin like it was supposed to be there all this while. She wondered if she had let him bite her, what else she would allow him, and the thought waned and waned until she realized that she had absolutely no idea. 

She stepped down the stairs with an urgency in her steps, her mind blanking until only the thought of her hunger remained lingering, making her stomach growl louder than usual. Arya bit her lip thinking how Jon would have laughed at that, suppressing a chuckle of her own. The steps were narrow, and it took her a while to get down to the lowest ground. The chambers were quite far up, almost at the top of the keep. Perhaps Jon liked the view, or the privacy. The First Keep at Winterfell had not been used since years, but here the floors and walls looked polished and new, no spider webs in sight. Servants moved past her hurriedly, sparing her a glance as they muttered something inside their mouths Arya could not hear or understand, and she made way for them to pass. Even if she and Bran had spent much of their childhood playing hide and seek inside the Keep's walls hiding simultaneously from each other and their mother, and knew almost all of its hides and old corners, Jon's Keep looked so far unlike her own. She almost forgot where the old hall was supposed to have been, when a distant memory of her getting scolded for hiding from Septa Mordane, under one of its broken pillars game to mine, and she moved towards it, gathering her strength to apologise if she wandered into something else instead. Gratefully, she was not wrong, and when the door was pushed open by a guard and she walked through, it was Jon she found sitting at the end of a wide dining table, his head instantly moving up when he saw her, and Arya sighed in relief at his face. He stood up and walked to her. He had changed to a black doublet, breeches quite like her own, and tied his hair at the nape of his neck with a tie, and Arya decided that he preferred his hair loose and she loved running her fingers through it. 

"Do you like your clothes?" He asked and pressed a kiss on top of her hair, as he led her to sit. Jon sat right beside her, vacating his earlier seat, and tucked a stray hair behind her ear. "It was not in my plans to get you here last night, so I do not really have anything to give you to wear except my own clothes." His eyes roamed up and down her body. "I think you look the best in mine." Arya rolled her eyes, and moved back into her chair as a girl served her plate, putting two eggs with cheese and a large piece of meat that looked like venison. A bowl of stew laid near the plate, and bread and a glass of ale. When the girl left, Arya pushed her plate aside, and started drinking her stew instead. It warmed her stomach instantly, and she chewed on a handful of bread. 

"What were your plans then?" She asked, the stew tasting much like Gage's did, making her more hungry. "Were you going to wait till my wedding day to steal me away?" 

"Steal you? I never stole you. Besides there was never going to be a wedding for you." 

Arya tilted her head in amusement. "Never?" 

Jon leaned close to her and licked the side of her lips. "Not to anyone else but me." 

"Can you do whatever you like here?" Arya asked, pulling the tie in his hair to let it fall down his shoulders undone, doing the same to him as he had once done to her. Jon did not look surprised. "My mother would have screamed for the Seven had she watched you do to me what you just did." 

He leaned closer to her ear. "You can do whatever you want here. No one will say anything." 

"Do they fear you?" 

He shook his head instantly. It made Arya feel proud. A leader who ruled out of fear was never a true leader, her father had said. She wanted to believe her father would someday meet Jon and come to like him. 

"They simply do not care, Arya. And besides, I believe servants are privy to many things even where you lived." 

"I would not know," she confessed. "I have never done something which would seem indecent, at least with a man." 

"I know you have not." 

"Were you keeping an eye on me all these years, My King?" 

She meant it as a jape, to distract him and somewhat relieve herself of the embarassment of confessing that she had not ever been with a man, and Jon had been her only kiss. In truth, she had never been attracted to a man in her entire life, and Lady Catelyn had always pushed her against one or another, in the hopes that she would catch someone's eye. Even if she did catch a few, they never seemed to catch hers, and that drove her lady mother to try and pick yet another for her, until they all grew tired of her. Forbid her something and it always became her heart's desire, and the opposite happened far too constantly as well. When her mother started telling her to choose a husband for her, it made Arya not want a man even more than she already had. Once, she had convinced herself that if it came to it, Lady Stark would eventually wed her to some stableboy in Winter town, finally giving up of the dreams of a greater husband for her. She never had anything against the lowborn; she had more stableboys as friends than lordlings, but Arya feared of marrying one because the men in Winter town always beat their wives. She knew eventually her husband would have died of her hand and maybe her mother too; for the whole situation would certainly scandalize her gentle mother to death. 

"Years are nothing to me, little one. Not when it comes to you," Jon said, breaking her thoughts. 

Arya narrowed her eyes. "So you really were watching me?" 

Jon smiled, tilting his head sideways. He reached out a hand to rub her cheek, then let it fall on her shoulder. Arya tried to remember if she had seen him before, in all of her years in the North, but while Jon looked half like her father and half like the statue of her uncle Brandon in the crypts, she could not remember a time when she had seen his face. Surely, she would have known. She would have felt him, felt his magic; she could not have lived to forget this eyes, not when they reminded her of the pools in her Godswood, of the sky before a snow storm. 

"Could I have let you be alone? I saw you, and I saw your loneliness. I ached to run to you and tell you how precious you were, how perfect, and that they were wrong. They were liars." 

Arya forgot about the food. She dragged her fingernails lightly over Jon's scalp. "You did not tell me why you waited. Why did you have to wait till a man was halfway to raping me for you to finally come?" Her voice sounded accusing, and she did not even try to hide it. Suddenly, she felt a surge of anger rush through her at the thought of Ramsay, at the thought of her mother arranging matches for her she did not want, at her father who loved her but never enough, at Robb for abandoning her when she needed him, at Sansa for hating her when she could have loved her and deliberately chose not to; and at Jon, for watching all of it, everything, everytime she was told to be something she was not, everytime she felt like she did not belong, and still not running to her, still not taking her away. 

"You were a child," he said, voice a whisper. "I could not have. I wanted to, but I could not. I would never have let them hurt you for real, little one. They could never make you marry." He found her eyes, and Arya felt her heart slow down. "They could never send you away from home, they could never find you a good enough man. Because you are mine, you always have been. But there are things you do not understand-" 

"Then tell me!" 

Jon sighed. "I told you we are each other's fate. Everything is happening as it was always supposed to." 

She leaned back from his touch. He looked pained, but the look of determination in his face did not waver. Arya felt guilty. She could not really blame them all, not when she was the one who had hurt herself the most by letting Sansa get into her head, by not having the courage to stand up to her mother, by not telling Robb that he was an arse. She could not blame Jon for not coming to her, not when he was in pain too. He did not have to make her happy; she was the one who needed to make herself more brave and stop listening to everyone but herself. 

"I want to know everything," she told him, so strongly that he would have to believe. "Everything about you, about this place." She stopped and kissed him, putting her tongue inside his mouth, tasting honey on his teeth. "I want to know why you love me. Why I cannot help but want to love you back." 

"I will tell you," he panted. She traced a scar on his face with her finger, memorizing it with touch. "You are so much more than you think you are. You are a God, Arya Stark." 

She shook her head. "I just want to be brave." 

"You will be the bravest," he vowed. "And I will fill you with magic till it drips off your fingers, till it dances across your skin and makes you soar in the sky." 

"Teach me." 

The tongues danced together, and Arya felt like a little girl, not the one who felt inferior to her sister, but the one before her- who wanted glory, wanted freedom, wanted to touch death with her hands and play with it. He repeated his earlier words with a stronger resolve, 

"Everything, Arya. Everything is yours. And so am I." 

✦✧✦✧

Jon did not have a name for his kingdom. Arya had rolled her eyes at that, but she could not even blame him for not naming it like everyone else did. The Old Gods- even if Arya had not a clue how old Jon really was- were there before the humans, before everything, and once, the Old Gods were the only ones worshipped through the whole of Westeros, before the Seven. Everything came after: their own North, Winterfell, Starks, Kings and Lords. Why would the Gods even bother naming it when the entire Westeros was theirs, Arya thought. When she looked upon the everyone inside the castle, it fascinated her that they looked like ordinary men, women and children, and yet she had the knowledge that they were probably not. Jon had told her that not everyone was immortal like him, and that even in his kingdom, death was welcome and something they cannot escape. Arya had a strange vision then: of her growing old and grey while Jon still looked like himself, and it was not pleasant, if perhaps a little amusing. 

She had sent Jon away to do whatever he wanted because she wanted to explore on her own, and he always kept distracting her with his touches or words. Arya was surprised to find that while the structure of the castle was so alike to Winterfell, it was bigger and more vast, and the population was greater. The people did not seem to be in a hurry as they had always seemed back home. Everyone seemed to be at ease, and the work looked less. To the North of the castle, a gate opened to a larger town, the houses a little smaller but looked no less comfortable, and they were thrice the size of the village houses back in Winter town. She did not miss how everyone seemed to look at her with wonder as she passed, some even shy when she looked their way. She had decided on the last minute to not ride a horse and instead walk around. She tried to smile at some of the people, but they only bowed and kept them low. She would have to roam in disguise perhaps, like she did back home. If being a lord's daughter was overwhelming and kept her from mingling with the commonfolk, she could only guess what being a Queen would be like. It took her quite an effort to try and talk to some of them, and while they all seemed shy and hesitant, she did manage to get answers from them that she had been seeking for long: they called Jon their King, and they seemed to know who she was, that she would soon become his wife and rule by his side. Arya flushed at that, but kept asking them other questions. They knew of the human world, but told her how only the Gods had the power to go there and come from there. No one really knew much about Jon's magic, and what it could do. There was only one way to the kingdom which could only be seen and travelled by someone who practiced magic, and most of the people had not the slightest idea of how to do it. When she asked more about it, she did not get much information, only that the Gods were privy to magic, and there were some among them who are born with it, but the numbers were scarce. Others told her tales of the past, of how the Old Gods used to be many, but then scattered as the humans increased and increased and other religions followed and spread. They had only known Jon, and a few others. They told her that Jon was Deathless, that he was immortal and he had lived since before the lands came to being. No one remembered him as being younger than he was now, and many generations had come and gone while he had remained their King. He was the one who had provided aid to Brandon the Builder, the only Stark lord who had known of the Gods' existence. Arya envisioned Jon as a King of Old, on a throne quite like the Winter Throne in Winterfell, and felt a thrill at it, to watch him with a crown on his head. All of the people she talked to told her Jon was good, that Jon was kind; most of them also told her that he seemed lonely, and he frequently left their world to go to the other. Her heart seemed to sink at it, knowing that he went to see her. Why had they had not found each other before? Was fate so cruel to not let it happen sooner? 

She had managed to make a few acquaintances, if not friends, by the end of her exploration. She had found a swordsmith who promised to make her a sword, an old woman who told her that she looked like her lost granddaughter, and a little boy who showed her a garden of wildflowers. She remembered bringing them to Ned's lap, watching his eyes fill with love for her, and taking her in his arms giving her almost no air to breathe. She plucked one and and wrapped the stem around her finger in a knot, remembering her father, wondering how he slept without his favourite daughter kissing him goodnight, and how he must have felt guilty at not being able to keep her close; the agony at losing her, years after losing his own sister, the wound cut open by Arya's own selfishness. What would have happened if she had taken Jon to him instead, had refused to leave and decided not to risk everything? She could be wishful, but none of it would wash away her sins and guilt. As she sat down by the flowerbed, she caught a glance of Ghost. The wolf looked at her through his wise red eyes and Arya smiled back at him. He stepped closer to her as Arya sat down cross-legged, tentatively licking her cheek. When Arya giggled, he came closer to her and nudged his face into her, an action that mirrored his master's. Arya hid her face into his pale fur, and smelled the smell of damp earth on him. Ghost took a seat beside her, so unlike his ferocious self that had ripped apart a man's flesh the day earlier, as if he knew that she was saddened. Arya stayed with him, head hidden in his fur for quite a while, until she felt him whine. Ghost looked at her apologetically, and she kissed the top of his head like she would her favourite mare's, and watched as he left her with another wet lick all over her face. He was her first real friend here, she decided, and she would always be thankful to him for Ramsay. 

The flower had wilted on her finger by the time she dragged her tired self back inside the walls of the castle. Everyone bowed to her, and she wished nothing more than to have learned her courtesies better. Cold wind rushed through the gates, and Arya remembered that she had roamed around with just a tunic in a place white with snow, and strangely had not felt cold till that very minute. Was everything about this place going to baffle her, she wondered. She tried to search for Jon, and sighed at the thought of walking the stairs up to her chamber. Would Jon sleep with her tonight, unlike last night? She was dwelling on her thoughts when she bumped into a chamber girl, and the girl carefully stepped back, bowing her head. 

"Um," Arya began. "Do you know where the King is?" 

The girl nodded and aimed to Arya's left, to a closed door guarded by a man. Arya thanked the girl but she mumbled in nervousness and ran away. She took a deep breath, and walked to the door, not knowing what to tell the guard. But as soon as he saw her, he bowed and opened it, showing her inside. Arya smiled at him, then felt the hard wood carving on the door as she stepped inside. She found Jon's eyes, but also the presence of another person. The woman stood close to Jon, almost too close to touch. Her blue eyes glinted in the light and one of her hands pushed back her long yellow hair over her shoulder. She looked at Arya with a scrutinizing look, over and over again till Arya could not help but narrow her eyes. Her full lips curved to a smile, far from genuine and Arya found herself looking at Jon instead, a strange alien feeling clutching at her heart at the sight of both of them. She had asked herself how Jon could love her- over and over again, envisioning a dozen women who would look prettier than her that he could choose, one of them being her own sister. This yellow-haired woman seemed to belong to that long list, and even if it had been only a day, only one night, Arya felt like her stomach had a knife inside it and someone was turning it over and over again, not caring what it cut through. She felt for the first time in many years the one feeling she would kill to avoid, the one Sansa had made her feel for most of the years of her life. When she searched Jon's eyes, she saw a hint of guilt in them and her heart sank. She clenched her teeth. _Brave,_ she told herself. 

"My love," Jon called her fervently. For all the uneasiness in his eyes, his voice did not quiver. "Are you done with running around?" Arya bit her lip, wanting to tell him she was not a child. He walked to her and ran his thumb over her lips. 

"Are you busy?" She asked, trying her best not to sound anything but casual. 

He shook his head instantly. "You must meet someone," he said, and took her hand as he pulled her along. When she stood infront of the woman, however, Arya saw that she did not have the look in her eyes that Arya expected. "This is Val," Jon said, his voice steady. "She is told to take care of you. If you need anything at all. And she can be your friend." 

_I do not need a friend,_ she wanted to tell him, but only nodded. She wanted nothing more than to go back to the old lady back at the village, or sleep for hours hugging Ghost. 

"My Queen," Val said, giving her a bow. 

"That is all, Val," Jon said, and she could not help but feel grateful for it. As soon as she was out of the room and the doors were closed, Arya turned to Jon with a newfound determination in her eyes. 

"Who was she?" 

He looked surprised. "I told you. She is to take care of you." 

"Then why did she look at me like she would kill thousands to switch our places?" 

Jon eyes moved over hers, and down to her lips. He placed both his hands on her neck and drew her mouth to his in a searing kiss, tongue over tongue, warm and dangerous. It had its effect; Arya sighed, her chest heaving in relief. "What does it matter what she wants?" He asked and licked down her chin, sliding wet kisses down her clavicle. Arya scolded herself inwardly for letting him kiss away her fears, all of her thoughts. But she was nowhere near to stopping him from what she was doing. He pulled her tunic out of her breeches, using the opening to put his hands inside it, feeling her under her shift, her breasts instantly pushed by her against his palms. Jon kneaded them as Arya moaned, wrapping her arms around his neck as she felt her legs tremble. It was too much and yet not enough. Jon kissed into her open mouth, licking the curve on the inside of it, and pushed into her as his hands kept their pressure adamant on her teats. Arya felt it then, the wetness between her legs and the hardness of him pushing at her centre. She moaned into his mouth, the sensation completely alien, and he swallowed it down, pushing her against the walls of the unlit fireplace. 

"Jon," she moaned, all coherent thoughts having left her mind. Their mouths broke apart for air, and Arya's eyes were wet with tears, the feeling between her legs overwhelming her. Jon pulled her nipples between his fingers and the pleasure rushed down south. 

"Not now, my love," he whispered, biting the lobe of her ear. He relentlessly pushed his hardness against her covered center again and again, making her choke on her moans, and then stopped, his hands giving her breasts one final squeeze as he panted against her ears. "Not here." Arya opened her eyes to find his own glistening too. "I have a present for you." She calmed her breathing as Jon pulled his hands out of her tunic then attempted to straighten it. She glanced at the bulge down his stomach and how it was still prominent. He lifted her chin up with his fingers and smiled, his eyes shining like coal. "I told you that you will be happy." He stepped back from her and walked to the door. Arya's legs still felt weaker but she managed to comb her fingers through her hair and put her tunic back inside her breeches as the door opened. She licked her lips, wincing as she felt a cut with her tongue, no doubt another bite Jon had given her. She heard whispers near the door and then looked ahead. Another woman walked through the door, with Jon by her side. She wore a cloak with a hood that covered her head, and Arya could only see a shadow over her face. Jon waited by the door, not coming close and Arya looked at him in doubt. He only smiled at her, all the while the woman walked to her with slow steps, each one slower than the other. When both of them were at arm's length, the woman held out a hand and rubbed the side of Arya's cheek. She was surprised at the touch but did not resist it, the soft palm against her skin feeling so familiar, even if the person was not. Arya waited for the woman to reveal herself- when she did and removed the hood of her cloak, Arya saw the most beautiful sight, and felt a rush of blood to her heart. Grey eyes stared back at her, light like her own and brown hair flowed down the woman's shoulders, also like her own. Like Jon's. Like a Stark's.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fast development of their relationship is intentional, and meant to arouse questions. If you find yourself doubting and being skeptical about the characters' intentions or reactions, I think I have done my job here.


	4. A False Promise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The past returns to haunt Ned Stark.

He could hear the soft sob that Catelyn tried to suppress, all the while appearing as the perfect lady that she always was, hands clutched tight and hidden somewhere underneath her woollen robe. Ned was far from it; as much as he was unaware and unsure of what had truly come to pass, he did not relent in accepting it. He was the one who had found Ramsay's butchered body, ripped apart by what looked like teeth marks. The carnage was so terrible that he had to make Jory hold Catelyn back with his arms in order to not let her witness such a morbid sight. Ramsay Bolton's face was now barely recognizable, skin ripped out of his bones and one eye almost dangling out of its socket. In all his long life, Ned had not seen something as horrifying as this, and he had seen much. He had seen shadowcats the size of horses and wolves that had hooks for claws and yet, none of them seemed to be capable enough of doing this: of tearing a man apart and crushing his bones underneath its weight. It looked like wrath and fury; it looked like a _warning_. Lord Bolton had not left the Godswood since the night and even now when the morning was starting to shine brighter, Eddard found himself staring at the back of the Lord of the Dreadfort's head, wondering how he could explain something to his guest that he could not himself comprehend. He would have gladly kept offering his unrelenting sympathies to Roose, had his son's death been the only terrifying event of the previous night. But no matter how much Ned wanted to mourn the death of the young man and convince himself to care about it, his own daughter's disappearance had already made him indifferent to the pains of the other man. His heart had not stopped raging since the night; as soon as he had caught the sight of the body he had panicked and ran left and right to search for his daughter, trying to stop the unwanted thoughts from entering his mind. Ned had made his men search Winterfell from every corner to every chamber and yet, he could not find even a trace of Arya anywhere- nothing expect a torn piece of the gown she had so hatefully worn the night before, discarded in the snow not inches away from Ramsay now slowly rotting corpse. The first thought that had crept inside his head had been of ice-cold fear: that what had happened to Ramsay Bolton had somehow happened to Arya as well. But soon enough he had gratefully decided against it; he would have found her if it had. If not, could not have run far; as brave and fierce as his little daughter was, she was only a tiny thing that could not have fought off an animal with the capacity of doing _this_ to a grown man. Not for the first time, Ned wondered if it was even an animal, and not something even more dangerous. Beside him, he felt the presence of Catelyn again, but how could he tell his wife to keep calm and wait when he himself wanted to find a horse as soon as possible and instantly ride in search of his daughter. Regret clawed at his heart; he should have made his mind to stop her from doing something she had not wanted to do, and much so he should have stopped her from leaving the feast over something as insignificant as wine spilling on her dress. He should have told Catelyn to not have a feast at all and let Arya be how she wanted to be. Only the Gods knew when his little girl would return, and Ned knew it was going to rip apart his chest until she did. Ned knew all too well the agony of losing someone he loved beyond measure. Lyanna was only fourteen and he was but a young boy; now the wound was a thousand times deeper, ready to brand into his skin and make him remember every single moment he breathed about how he had failed both of them. First his sister, now his own daughter. Arya had to be safe and well. She had to. A distant and hazy voice rang in his mind like a warning bell. _Give me your word, Lord Stark._ Ned clenched the joints of his hand until they cracked. Lyanna was gone, but Arya did not have to be. The price of a broken promise could not have been as great as this- as much as losing his little girl.

"Jory," Ned called. Roose Bolton spared him a glance but did not say anything. He knew how the sight must have affected him, but the Lord of the Dreadfort did not look as much distraught as he would have expected him to. Nevertheless, Ned did not doubt the depth of his sadness. His captain of guards gave him a stiff bow. Arya was close to many in Winterfell, and they all loved her well. "We will search the Wolfswood now. Gather the men and send ravens to Deepwood Motte and Cerwyn. I want my daughter found before nightfall. Promise rewards if need be."

"My lord." Jory gave him a look of hesitation. "There is a storm brewing near the horizon. Perhaps we should wait for it to pass."

Ned clenched his teeth hard, and the next glance he made towards Jory made the latter nod his head and turn to leave. Catelyn sought his hand, and he found hers warm whereas his own knuckles were icy cold and white, clenched tight in a crushing fist. The tiny little thought he had allowed inside his head now flowed inside it relentlessly. _Give me your word, Lord Stark._ He had, hadn't he? He had, but he surely had not meant it. How could he? Arya was a little girl, barely nine, and it all had seemed like a mummer's farce or a trick. It had been ten years and Ned had almost forgotten; almost forgotten everything, until now.

"Get the horses ready," he mumbled under his breath but Jory heard him. He gave Catelyn's hand a swift squeeze before leaving, cloak too heavy to bear the weight of, his hold tightening over his sword hilt like he was trying to crush it with his bare hands. The memory was now not so distant, not do unclear as it had been. It now played itself in repeat, every word clear as if it had been uttered just minutes ago, and Ned felt a chill creep up his spine. He barely heard Catelyn calling his name. She would know; she always did. She would take one look at him and know that there was something wrong. He glanced once behind him- Jory was gone and he was relieved. He needed to go look for her. Perhaps it was all nothing but his mind running astray. He would find Arya somewhere like he always did, huddled beneath one tree or the other, and he would hug her and all would be well, and she would go back to being his little girl and he would swear to her to never, ever let a suitor near her if she did not wish for it.

Ned walked past his wife, turning away from the heart tree with its eyes that knew too much. At the gates, Jory waited with twelve of their best men, all bowing silently to him as he held the reins of his destrier and tugged it gently with his fingers. The animal neighed softly, nudging its soft muzzle against his palm.

"The ravens?"

"The Maester has been told to send them in haste." Jory mounted his own horse, and behind him, all twelve of them were already atop theirs. Arya loved horses, and Lyanna too. He had told himself that he would not make the same mistakes their father had made with Lyanna. He had cherished Arya like no other, listened to all her whims even if they bothered his lady wife and made her furious, even. He had asked Jory to teach her to fight with a wooden sword, asked another to teach her the bow if she wanted to. He had ignored the knives he had seen tucked beneath her cloak with a smile. He had done everything their lord father should have, everything he had wanted Lyanna to have too. Ned shook his head at his own thoughts and mounted his horse. Arya was no Lyanna. He would find her if it meant having to search every inch of Westeros. Where could she go, his little girl? Whatever had gotten Ramsay Bolton, clearly had not gotten her, and Arya was no Lyanna; she would have fought against anyone who would dare ask her to leave Winterfell behind. Ned knew it in his bones.

The Wolfswood was not something everyone visited for a stroll. Once, Ned remembered Arya running away to hide here, after Catelyn had told him that she had a mind to send her away to Starfall, to live with Lady Ashara. The idea had soon been dismissed, however, when he had found her lying unconscious at the foot of a tree, with her having, strangely, no recollection of why she had left the castle and when. It had taken him a lot to convince Catelyn, but in the end his wife had acquiesced. He still remembered the way Arya had hugged him that night- tears streaming down her face as she laughed and promised that she would behave and act like a lady so that he would never have the thought of sending her away again. Of course, she was as far from being one as a girl could possibly be, but Ned did not care, and he made sure that she knew that. He saw her over the years, her sadness at having to see Robb go, then Bran, and then finding herself all alone with Catelyn always telling her to behave and act different. Ned was never against Cat for raising their children as she wanted, but ever since Arya was a little girl, he had known somehow that she would not be what they all wanted her to be. She was a Northerner in her blood, and they could not turn her into Southern lady as much as they wanted, as much as his lady wife tried. Ned did not interfere in anything that Catelyn wanted to do, but in a corner of his heart, he hoped that Arya would never change. Perhaps it was unfair for him to paint Arya as Lyanna, to see his sister in every step she made. Perhaps it was even more unfair and selfish of him to hope that she would not agree with her mother in the latter's bid to change her, knowing that it would lead to strife between them both. Mayhaps it was his fault after all; he had tried to put too much of Lyanna in Arya. Now the shadow of Lyanna's terrible fate loomed heavy over the life of his own daughter and to think that he might somehow have a hand in it made his heart sink.

Jory's horse galloped close to Ned's. The air was clear and calm, but only because it was warning them against the snowstorm that would soon follow. Ned had no doubt that Arya could take care of herself, but it still did not make him rest easy. The path through the forest was tiny, and the howls of wolves echoed hauntingly. Did a wolf do that to Ramsay? Ned still could not place how something that big could have entered the Godswood, killed a man and left without anyone knowing. Arya would have screamed for her life and made a run for it. But what animal would hurt one person and spare another- especially an animal as violent as ferocious as this one seemed to be. He paid heed to his earlier thought that Arya must have not met Ramsay after all, and yet it did not put into place why Ramsay had gone to the Godswood in the first place. The only reason he had left the feast was to look for Arya, with his and Catelyn's consent. Ned's head hurt, and his heart longed to be put to rest; to see with his own eyes that Arya was safe and well.

"How many men were sent to Winter Town in the morning?"

"Five and ten, My Lord." Ned's sword hand started aching from the cold. He could sense the impending storm inch closer.

"We look for her until we find her. The storm will have to wait," Ned said with determination. Jory muttered an affirmative beside him, and Ned pulled the reins of his horse to make it trot faster. He had no intention of stopping until he found Arya, or at least heard news of her well-being. Not much of the day had passed, but already it felt like ages. None of them had slept the night before, and he did not think he would get an ounce of sleep even now, not until he had his daughter back in his arms. He had a mind to write to Robb to make him journey back with more haste, but Robb's ship would dock at White Harbour soon enough, and only then could he send his son a raven. Ned was sure, however, that he would find her even before Robb reached Winterfell. He told himself he had to; the panic had not yet set in, it was still too early for that. The worst was not something he would let himself even think of. The distant howls now rang clearer and clearer, and he tightened the grip of his sword hand. Could that animal be near too? The howls were slow, but they cut through the otherwise dead silence of the woods like a knife, and yet, as Ned and Jory Cassel moved deeper into the forest following the tiny mud road, Ned could hear the howls grow louder and louder, incessant and wild. Their horses started hesitating, heads turning wildly in either direction, neighs falling out of their mouths like cries of fear. He cursed under his breath; one final pull at the reins and his destrier came to a stop, its grey mane having a life of its own as it shook, and the horse whined in apology, while making no move to step forward, or move in any direction.

"Stop." Ned held out a hand, and his knight stopped in his tracks. The other horse whined too, like a wounded animal, and nudged the snow with its hooves. Ned looked ahead as yellow and grey eyes filled the shadowed crevices between the thick groves of trees, the sound of snarls and growls vibrating through his eardrums. They did not come closer, nor did they move away; they stayed stuck to their place with unmoving but menacing eyes, looking intently at him as if he was the one they were seeking. Ned unmounted his horse and tried to hush his destrier with a soft hand. The animal did not listen; the wolves howled louder.

"There is no road ahead, My Lord," Jory chimed in. There surely was one, but Ned could not blame him from hesitating to approach the beasts. Never in a thousand years could the both of them turn away wolves as great a number as these. Ned frowned. They were not attacking him either, just like he had guessed the bigger animal had not attacked Arya. He kept his hand away from Ice, fearing that such a movement might anger them, and slowly put one foot forward, padding through soft snow, making almost no noise. The growls continued, but Ned saw how they studied him; kept him in their vision, saw him approach and still did not attack him. Wolves hungry for meat would never let such a prey pass them by, especially not in a place like this where humans were less to visit in the first place. Ned felt a chill in his bones, but kept approaching. Somewhere in the back of his head, a voice told him that this might lead him to Arya, as stupid as it sounded to his own sane mind. His hands itched from the cold again, the knuckles cracking almost dangerously. The wolves growled louder, then suddenly stopped, eyes still stuck on him and his movements, then strangely, retreated silently back into the forest, just as silently as they had come.

Ned heard the faint sound of footsteps and turned to see if it was Jory, but his knight was still near their horses, and definitely not walking beside him. At the sight of the retreating beasts, Ned wielded Ice in one hand, the Valyrian Steel catching a purple-silver shimmer in the light, the edges shining from the sharpness. The heavy longsword scraped over the snow as he moved, and as Ned made a final step towards the road that seemed to disappear in the darkness, the footsteps came closer and he halted, the tip of Ice lodged in the snow, his hand shaking once then twice before his eyes went wide at the sight before him. A man with grey eyes approached him, with a face that held similarity to his own and that chill, the one that accompanied a cold, ruthless fear and terrifying thought, rushed through Ned's head. But this time, it was not just inside his head; it was real and alive, right before him. _Give me your word, Lord Stark._ He had broken it. Broken his oath. Broken his word he had given to this man right here, the one who looked no different than he had ten years ago, his eyes still brimming with the same ruthlessness and hatred when he looked at him, as he had all those years ago. He had broken his promise. Broken an oath he had made in the name of his Gods. Ned should have heeded his warning, that he would pay the price of he would try to change things. The price was Arya; it had always been Arya.

Ned stopped Jory with a strong hand when he approached. The raven haired man stared glares at him until he slowly walked out of the darkness, even if it was the full of day. His hair was long and pulled back, and Ned saw that he clenched something within his grasp in his left hand. Ned's mind was filled with visions, and regret and the price he was going to pay for the consequences of his own decisions.

"Where is she?" He asked, taking a step forward. Ice was immobile; Ned knew better than to think he could fight someone like him, even if his sword hand trembled. He remembered that a blade could not hurt him. "My daughter." His voice cracked. The laughing face of Arya came to his mind, smudged by dirt after she ran around Winterfell to gather flowers for him. "Give her to me. You took her. I know it." The words felt like such a strong poison. He had known for a long time, but never had the strength to acknowledge it until now. _She is a child. My little girl._ "She would never leave willingly." Ned clenched his teeth, meeting the glare of the man with his own. "Give me my daughter back."

He heard the click of a tongue. The man held out his hand, and in it was a ring. It was a jade Catelyn had made Arya wear for the feast. Ned took it to see if it was real, and he knew that it belonged to his daughter. "She was never yours to keep. I warned you." The man stepped forward again and Ned swung Ice right against his neck, slicing skin as a trickle of blood dripped down his chin disappearing inside his cloak, a memory freshly recollected in a moment's notice. The rage in his eyes burned brighter. "She is finally where she belongs, and there is nothing in all the worlds that could keep take her away from me. Not even you, Lord Stark. Not anyone."

✦✧✦✧

_Ned felt Catelyn move against his naked self as she mumbled something in her sleep. He stroked her hair softly, not opening his eyes and ready to fall back to sleep again when the door of the chamber was banged upon in quick succession. Both of them woke up instantly, Cat sitting up suddenly with a jolt._

_"Mother! Father! It is Arya!" The panic in Robb's voice sucked all the sleepiness out of Ned. He sat upright in bed and picked up his tunic from the discarded pile of clothes near his bed. "Open the door! Arya has the fever!" Ned sprung from his bed and glanced back at his wife as she buttoned her dress up. As Catelyn finally finished wearing her clothes, she nodded at him and Ned rushed to the door with her in tow. Robb stood on the other side, brows curled in worry, voice breaking as he heaved, sweat glistening the roots of his auburn bright hair. "I was trying to sneak her a berry tart when I found her rolling in her bed, sweating like a horse. She was burning. Please you have to see her-" Ned was already rushing past his son, cloak forgotten as he ran past the hallway into the wing where the children's chambers were. He heard the steps of Cat and Robb following him as he came face to face with the door of Arya's bedroom, now wide open. Ned rushed inside, his feet sliding off the floor as he instantly knelt beside Arya's bed. She was drenched in sweat, her furs kicked away and shift soaking wet. Ned touched her head as she whimpered, thrashing against the bed wildly, eyes closed but awake. He wiped the sweat off her brow with a hand, and felt her skin scorching hot._

_"My girl!" Catelyn rushed past him and picked her up in her arms. Arya reacted violently, groaning as she pushed against her mother's hold. Ned felt Robb tug on his hand, and he put a firm hand on the little boy's shoulder._

_"Go and get the Maester. Quickly, Robb." Ned told him, and Robb nodded, springing into a run. Ned rushed to his daughter and helped Cat as they both made her sit with her back against the headboard. Arya was too weak to keep still, and kept falling forward. Her pale skin looked like it was on fire, flushed with the fever. Ned had already recognized what it was; for weeks a fever had broken out in Winter Town and the villages outside Winterfell. Children and old alike had died from it, and there had been strict restrictions regarding anyone who went to these places and came back inside the walls. Ned had made sure that nobody had caught the sickness, until five days ago when a maid had died overnight from it. Since then, however, no one else seemed to have been affected by it. He had also sat Robb and Arya down and made sure to tell them with a stern look about what would happen if they were to run around outside Winterfell looking for mischief. While he had made sure that somebody always kept an eye on both of the siblings, he knew he would not put it past Arya to have found an opening and made a run for it, always ready to do the things she was clearly asked not to. Ned ran a hand through her hair, and it came out damp. Catelyn reached for the water jug on her bed stand as she tried to make Arya drink the water from the glass. Arya did not; and again thrashed wildly, her hair sticking to her face and eyes clamped shut as if she was in pain. Ned pressed a kiss to her head as he heard the door close behind him and Maester Luwin walked in, worry etched onto his face. Ned and Cat walked away from the bed as the Maester pressed his hand to Arya's cheek and neck and then started to rub her hands to try and keep them warm enough._

_"Is she alright, Father?" Robb tugged his hand, and Ned squeezed it in reassurance, nodding. A fever was too little to hurt the whirlwind that was Arya Stark. Ned had never blamed Arya's terrible knack for rebellion until then, and wished his little girl was a little less stubborn and actually listened._

_"Maester Luwin?"_

_"It seems she has caught the worst of it, My Lord," Luwin replied, worriedly and softly. Ned felt Robb clutch his hand strongly, as he tried to give the same assurance to himself as he had earlier given his son. He reached for Arya and placed his palm over her cheek. It was hot and wet. She mumbled something inaudible. "I will try to brew a potion, but it will take time. We need to keep Lady Arya warm until then." The Maester bowed as his chain clinked and he walked to the door, telling Catelyn that he would be as quick as possible. Ned watched as her lips trembled but nevertheless she gave him a nod. Underneath his touch, Arya's skin seemed to grow hotter and hotter._

_"Go and see if the Maester needs anything, Robb," Cat told the boy. Robb nodded, pressing a hand against Arya's own. Ned knew how much he adored her, and how afraid he really was. Cat clutched his hand and Ned looked up. He had tried so hard to not panic at the thought of the sickness getting worse but as soon as he looked at his lady wife he knew that she was already worried to her bones about their daughter. "Ned." Cat's voice was barely a whisper, but laden thickly with fear. "I will go and wake Sansa up. She can help me get her out of these clothes and I will tell the cook to make something warm." Cat gave his shoulder a squeeze and Ned smiled at her reassuringly. "Stay with her."_

_Ned smoothed down Arya's hair as Cat left, and kneeled beside her bed again. She opened her eyes for a short breath of time, looked at him, then closed them again as her head fell back against her pillow. Ned's heart clenched at the sight, but he knew better than not to wait until Luwin showed up. The night was deathly quiet, and that made Arya's whimpers even more heart-wrenching to hear. Her soft featherbed creaked underneath her as Ned tried his best to keep her still, holding her arms gently yet firmly. Arya whispered something inaudible again as she pushed away the furs he had put over her, grunting in the process. The candle flickered near the bed, making shadows dance across the stone walls. Ned was thankful that Robb had found her in time, before the fever worsened. It was so unusual to see her in such a state, so still and calm. Since the moment she had opened her eyes as a babe, Arya Stark had been a force of nature, always kicking and running and laughing. While his older daughter was a perfect example of a sweet and soft girl, Arya was exactly the opposite; she was wild and flew like the wind. Sometimes Ned wondered if the Gods had somehow put Lyanna's soul inside her to have made them both so similar to each other. If somehow her aunt had been alive, they would have been mirrors of each other standing side-by-side, perfectly reflecting one another; not only in looks but also in their doings. How many times had Lyanna disappeared through the day and came back running with mud in her hair and a flight in her steps? And how many times had Ned seen the ghost of her in Arya, when she rode her horse like the finest knight in Westeros, and ran around the castle without a care for the world? To see her laying in a bed now, almost unconscious, broke Ned's heart._

_"Eddard Stark."_

_The voice came out of nowhere, or that is what he thought when he first heard it. Ned turned, hoping for it to be the Maester's, but it was not. It was not someone he had seen before in his life; a man with dark hair and a black heavy cloak stood near the door of Arya's room. A grown man, perhaps much younger than him but older than all of his children. He did not look like a guard, much less someone who worked in a household. Ned stood, suddenly cautious for some reason. "Who are you?" The man waited; the door behind him was closed and Ned remembered he had left his sword back in his chamber. The dark-haired man was looking at him with narrowed eyes and Ned saw scars scattered over his face like he had fought too many wars in his life, or atleast got into too many fights The curl of his hair reminded Ned of Brandon, his brother who had perished not many years ago during a hunt in the woods. The way he looked he could be any other Northerner, but the way his eyes roamed over Ned like he was looking down on him, the subtle clench of his jaw; all of it made it look like he could not have been less than a lord, or at least he did believe himself to be, with the way he stood and looked on with so much superiority. "Answer," Ned said impatiently. He had no time to deal with intruders; not when his daughter was shaking in sickness. At the thought of her, Ned turned involuntary, pressed a hand on her shoulder, then looked back at the stranger, ready to call for the guards when he found his almost Stark-like eyes glued onto Arya's form, the earlier hard clench of his jaw loosening as his mouth opened to suck in air, eyes shining like he was going to cry but not yet. His hands clenched once and twice, and he stared at Arya like she was something unusual and precious. Ned protectively came in front of his daughter, shielding her from the view of the stranger, and an almost growl-like sound escaped from the man's throat, more animal than human. Ned clenched his teeth. "Guards!"_

_"They will not hear you," the man said, taking a step forward as he brought his gloved hand and pulled one off with the other. Ned brought himself to his full height; both of them stood shoulder to shoulder, glaring at each other in equal measure. "They cannot cure her." The man looked past Ned, his eyes again glistening for a split moment before they hardened again. "Let me look at her."_

_"Get out," Ned commanded, his hands clenching in anger. He did not need a farce when the Maester would arrive anytime soon._

_"Step aside, Lord Stark." His voice was firm and demanding, and Ned wondered who could ever dare speak to the Warden of the North in such a way; surely not someone who knew who he was._

_"Get out of my daughter's chamber." Ned heard Arya cough, and all forgotten, turned to her. She was shaking with the chill, breaths falling out of her lips in frenzy. Ned heard a grunt behind him, a sound of pain and anger alike._

_"Step aside. I am not leaving her in your hands, nor anyone else's but mine." His voice resonated through the room, and somewhere far away, Ned heard the howl of a wolf. "Arya, she-" The way the stranger took his daughter's name made a sharp chill run down Ned's spine, and his voice now rang like a warning. Something was not right, and Ned could feel it in his bones. He called for his guards again, but no one responded. "I can take care of her," the man claimed, the tone of his voice completely different from his earlier one: a soft sigh; gentle. "There is no Maester in the entire Westeros who can heal her. You know it." Ned clenched his fists. "You cannot stop me from getting to her. If you love her enough, step aside. I swear to you I could never even think of hurting her."_

_Ned thought of it. Something was not right; and he did not know who this man was. But for some reason, he heard his words and believed at least, that he would not hurt Arya. It was chilling to see the way he looked at her, a way a grown man should not look at a child, but Ned did not have any choice but to put everything aside and see if he could do as he claimed. As if magically, his guards had vanished, and Luwin and Cat had disappeared. Ned felt as if he was standing outside in the cold of the Godswood, rather than in one of the warmest wings of the castles; he felt such a coldness hit his skin. Something about the man did not sit right, but Ned took a step aside, eyes never leaving his own, grey on grey, a sharp warning that not having a sword in hand would not stop him from hurting him in every other way if he even dared to hurt a hair on Arya's head._

_The man stepped forward, his glove now discarded near the bed and knelt beside it just as Ned had, but this time when a hand was pressed against her cheek, Arya did not react violently and neither did she revolted against it with passion. Her face leaned against the touch, almost as if on its own without her knowledge and the heaving of her chest slowed down as she gently opened her eyes. Ned looked on with disbelief as his daughter stared the stranger right in his eyes, her own opening clearly for the first time during the night. Her lips trembled but her breathing evened. The stranger flexed his fingers, running it through her wet hair as his knuckles disappeared within them, his eyes firmly stuck on her with a strange devotion in them, and the sight was so strange and yet so disarming of the both of them together, almost looking like a pair of twins, if Ned did not know better. He guessed that she must know him, perhaps from her frolicking around in towns around Winterfell, but however his daughter knew this stranger, it was sure that he had not sworn untrue. The way his fingers touched her gently and tenderly, Ned knew that there was no way he could harbour any intention of hurting her. It was almost with the same carefulness that a parent would caress a child, lovingly, and yet the look in both of their eyes did not look anything even close to it. Arya was eight- there was no way she could look at a person like that; she would not be capable of it. And yet. The uneasiness returned in him. Ned watched, waiting for him to give her a tonic or a herb or something that would heal her, but he never did. And still the more he waited and looked, and the more the man looked reverently at Arya caressing her hair with the softness of a feather, Ned saw Arya's breathing calming, her cheeks and neck losing its unnatural flush, her eyes no longer bloodshot as if in pain. As if through magic, Arya was starting to look no different than how she had when he had tucked her into her bed hours ago, a kiss on her head as she had fallen asleep in his arms. Ned felt the silence clutch at him like a claw; the candle flickered, and the man used his gloved hand to place it on her own, as Arya kept staring at him half in awe and half in a way Ned could not dare utter. Finally when she looked like no sickness had even touched her, the stranger clutched her hand tightly, whispered something inaudible that even Arya seemed not to comprehend and as soon as she had opened her eyes, she closed them, falling into unconscious. Ned rushed to her side, but the stranger stopped him with a hand. He looked at Arya, gave one soft stroke to her hair, and paused briefly before turning away from her, and Ned caught a glimpse of a smile on his lips, so different than that of his earlier countenance. When his eyes met Ned's he gave him a nod, and put his glove back on._

_"I need to speak to you."_

_"What kind of a healer are you?" Ned looked at Arya to make sure she was alright, and felt himself sigh in relief when he saw that she seemed to be sleeping peacefully._

_"I am no healer." He seemed to put his cloak into place as he walked away from him. He glanced one final time at Arya, hand on the doorknob, and he looked almost pained and distressed when he looked at her. "Come to your solar afterwards. I need to tell you something. And Lord Stark-" His voice trembled, but it also sounded like a subtle warning. "Take care of her."_

✦✧✦✧

_"Tell me for true." It had taken Ned a lot of convincing to try and make Catelyn understand how exactly Arya had suddenly come out of her fever, even if she was terribly relieved about it. The Maester had been awestruck, that something as serious as the fever had been gone so quick, but he too, seemed relieved. He had told them that it had gone as soon as it had come, and tried to convince them that perhaps it had not been the dangerous sickness after all, and just a winter fever. Ned had made sure to tuck Arya carefully into bed after Catelyn had changed her clothes. She had strangely been peacefully sleeping through it all, but the sickness was surely gone, and she looked as well as she had always been. Ned had left soon after, making sure she was warm, his head aching with questions of how exactly had a man managed to heal his daughter without even the help of any medicine, with just his touch. It seemed like magic, like unnatural and something that did not usually happen. While he was grateful too, he was also doubtful of why the man had done in the first place; the memory of how he had looked at her was still etched into Ned's consciousness, and he was no fool. He knew all too well what it meant, even if the stranger seemed to be very gentle with Arya, especially considering how he seemed with Ned in contrast. How had she known him? She could have met him somewhere outside Winterfell and he knew Arya. Ned knew his daughter like the back of his own hand. She made friends with anyone, even an outcast servant girl; even a beggar on the streets of Winter Town. It seemed to him not a strange thought, suddenly, to guess that she must have met him somehow before, but it still did not prove how he had managed to heal her, and how he had come to know in the first place that she was sick. Ned knew his own men, and he was not one of his knights or soldiers. He dressed far better than a servant or a stableboy. He needed answers that ate away at him, so now he stood in his solar; the man had seemed to reappear out of nowhere and seemed to be waiting for him. The kindness he remembered him showing his daughter, seemed like a falsehood. His eyes were grey like coal, staring into Ned's with distaste, and Ned stared back with equal dislike. "How do you know my daughter?" Ned took a seat near the fireplace, the ambers whispering an unknown language in his ears "How did you know she was sick? And how exactly are you capable of healing her like you did?"_

_"I have no intent of answering your questions, and neither do I feel even one moment's worth of likeness for you for me to consider it." He stayed as far away from the fire as possible, and at his insulting words, Ned would have locked him away in the dungeons, if not he had been forced to be grateful and in debt to him. He could never hurt someone who had saved his daughter's life. The man's eyes stared daggers into him. "Your daughter is my heart. I love her more than anything." Ned gripped the edge of his chair in rage and reached for Ice. The man was unnervingly calm as Ned lunged at him with sword in hand. The sight of a Valyrian Steel sword attacking should have made even the bravest man tremble with fear, but he seemed like no man at all at his nonchalance, and no trace of fear loomed anywhere in his eyes, only the same repulsion as before or perhaps even a little mockery. "There is no use of trying to hurt me. You cannot." Ned's sword cut through fresh skin, a slick cut on the side of his cheek as blood dripped off him. Ned meant it as a subtle warning, but it seemed it did not do its job._

_"She is a child!" Ned roared. "How dare you?"_

_"I know she is a child," he replied bitingly. "That is the only reason that is keeping me from taking her away with me. Do not presume, My Lord. If I dared enough, we would not be having this conversation." He swiped away the blood on his cheek with his gloved hand, but the wound shimmered again with beads of new blood. "I know you love her, even if you do not deserve her. She is only eight and as much as it torments me, I must let her be." His voice lowered into a whisper. "At least for now." Ned felt himself shaking with anger. He did not know what kept him from striking him down that very moment, but as if by an unknown enchantment, he was glued to his place. The man's eyes shone in newfound hatred, and his lips curled in a sly smile. "But you do owe me a debt for saving her life, don't you, Eddard Stark?" Ned stopped as if frozen. "Your daughter is my heart," he repeated. "And she will be my bride. She has been mine since before she was born. There will come a day when I will have what is mine, and she will find her own fate pushing her towards me." He held Ice by its length, and Ned watched as blood dripped out his glove down his wrist and half his palm was cut through with the blade. "Give me your word, Lord Stark. I want you to swear to me- on the debt you owe me, on your honor as the Lord of Winterfell, as Eddard Stark, that when that day comes you will let her go."_

_Ned's ears burned hot with anger. But it seemed Ice was useless against him as he had claimed. His sword hand was immobile. "I owe you no such thing, and I will never swear it."_

_The man growled. "Then you should know that I can reverse what I have done and perhaps then your daughter will not be as well as she is now."_

_"You would not dare," Ned whispered. He searched his eyes for lies. If he was, he did not show it. Ned noticed his voice trembling as he said the words, but did he really want to risk Arya's life over it- over something that could never come to pass years later? "You told me you would never hurt her."_

_"But at the cost of having her," he muttered and clenched his teeth._ "Anything. _And you must not think I am a man who makes japes."_

_"If you claim to love her then you would not have dared utter of ever hurting her." Ned's voice was filled with disgust. Blood dripped down the man's hand onto the floor and yet he did not seem to let the blade go. "My daughter is a Stark of Winterfell. She will stay in Winterfell until she wants to, and she will not be promised to any man without her consent. I would never make such an oath to you."_

_"I do not need your permission for anything." He let the blade go, as if it was not even a scratch, swiped his bloody hand over his cloak and shrugged it off. "I have come to you because of her. She would want me to, even if it is years away from now. On the contrary, there is nothing that could keep me from taking her anyway, when the time comes. Even now, I can have her. But I know she loves you, and she needs you." Again, pain latched onto his voice, pain sharper than Ned would have hoped him to be capable of. "Years from now, Arya will meet me and want me and come with me even if it means leaving you. I want you to let her go willingly that day. It would kill me to break her heart or give her pain."_

_Ned breathed rapidly. "She is a child. How can a grown man like you even think of something as that?"_

_"You understand nothing, My Lord." The man pulled his hair away from his face. The scars on his face looked deeper and newer- small red and brown welts. "But I will not expect you to. Someone like you will not understand me, or her. Make your oath now. I want nothing else. Make the oath and let her go, or refuse and let her be snatched away from you."_

_"She would never-"_

_"Oh, she will." The man straightened his cloak. Wolf howls rang in Ned's ears. To think of someone making a claim on his child made him shiver to his bones. He remembered Lyanna all of a sudden, his older sister, swept away into nothingness by things he did not understand. He would not let Arya suffer the same fate as her aunt. He would never lose her, even if it meant having to break an oath, or go to war. The man's eyes narrowed at him. "You cannot escape fate."_

_Ned looked him in his eyes._ I will change it. _"You have my word. If she wants to, she can go with you." The lie felt unnatural, but necessary. "But you have to swear on your love for her, that until she is of age and a grown woman, you will stay away from her. Only when she is older and of sane body and mind, will you think of letting her know you exist."_ And I will make sure that when she does grow up, she will not even contemplate about leaving Winterfell, or she will be so far away that you will never reach her. _"You swear to me that you will not manipulate a child."_

_To Ned's surprise, the man laughed. It was bitter and mocking. "If you think you can trick me, you are wrong. But I swear it. I will only come to her after she has grown, but you would be a fool to think that what I say tonight might not come to pass. It will, and if you try and change it, you will suffer for it."_

✦✧✦✧

Catelyn was sitting on their bed while she faced the window, and when the door opened, she sprung to her feet instantly, rushing to Ned as she clutched as his arm, hope and sadness equally brewing in her eyes as she looked up at him. Ned for his part, could not meet her own, and put Ice down against his bed as he walked away from her, head aching in pain. Outside, the storm had started and the shutters violently banged against the window. Cat waited patiently for him to say something, but after a while she clutched at his arm again as he was sitting on the bed, and when Ned met her eyes finally and inevitably, he saw the exact moment when Catelyn realized that he had not found their daughter, and not only that, but that there was something terrible that he had learned. "Oh, Ned." There were tears in her eyes. She clutched her face in her hands. "I have been so unfair to her. I should have never made her so upset that she would think of leaving." He heard her sobs, but Ned was too tired to make a move to try and console her. He would have to tell her eventually that it was all his fault; he had known what would come to pass and had tried to ignore it like a fool. He would have to tell her that they had perhaps lost their girl forever, and that too, to a man, a man whose intentions he knew nothing of. A man who should have been older after so many years, but incredulously was not. He would have to tell her that Arya had been taken away, and there was no way to knew where. That was not what he feared the most, however; what he feared was that he had lost his little girl and he would never find her again even if he tried. His little Arya who brought him flowers, made him laugh until he had tears in his eyes; they called her his favourite, and she was. He was not supposed to play favourites, but he did. He always did. She was _his_ little girl, since the day she first opened her eyes. And now she was not.

Catelyn's body wrecked with sobs, as they echoed through the chambers and stabbed at Ned's heart like daggers. "Cat," he whispered. She did not turn to him, nor did she really listen to him, but Ned took a deep breath and decided to out with the truth. Catelyn was her mother; Catelyn was thinking the worse, perhaps it would soothe her to know that Arya was alive and well, but Ned could only hope that it would lessen the blow that would soon follow. "Arya is alive and safe," he managed to say calmly. He heard her sharp intake of breath, then a laugh that was half relieved and half joy, but before she could be swept away in it and be tricked, Ned knew he had to tell her the truth. _She is mine now. _How could she have gone, and why? He would never have believed that Arya would leave Winterfell for a man- a man she met not twice, and leave everything behind, even her own father. Lyanna's face mocked him. The Gods knew he had tried to change everything, give Arya everything that Lyanna had wanted, that she had missed, and yet fate had always made up its mind to take her away. "Arya is-" He felt his voice choke. Could he bring her back if he wanted? Would she even return? What had he given her that had tempted Arya so much? Was she in love with him, as he had claimed to be. He knew his daughter. He would have known if she had been in love, or wanted someone. She would never have agreed to a suitor asking for her hand. Cat urged him on, and Ned clenched his teeth hoping that somehow the words would come out less painfully, but in vain. "Arya is gone, Cat." Before she could make assumptions, Ned turned to her, looked her in her blue raging eyes. Somewhere in a dark corner of his heart, he partly blamed Catelyn for everything that had come to pass. He would never have asked someone like Ramsay to come and court Arya. Now that he knew what Ramsay had been, what he had tried to do, he could not help but feel even more guilty that he had not asked Catelyn sternly to not let him come and court their daughter. Robb had advised him against it in one of his letters. Ned should have listened to him, and not to Catelyn's claims of getting Arya betrothed as soon as possible. He would have kept Arya with him if it meant that she would remain unmarried all her life, even if it meant that it would make Catelyn displeased. Why had he not tried and tell his lady wife that he did not want her to turn Arya into Sansa? "He took her. He told me he would, all those years ago and I did not believe him." Ned felt his heart sink for the tenth time that morning. For the first time since the previous night, he felt unshed tears start to burn his eyes. "I tried to make her love this place so she would never, _ever _think of leaving. I did not think he would come for her. It was so many years ago. She was just a child. I promised-" Ned felt anger, but also helplessness. The Gods he believed in had deceived him. Catelyn urged him on with impatience, not understanding a word of what he was saying. But Ned was distraught with the burden of his own guilt, and he looked at her with pain in his eyes as he kept mumbling. "I promised him and I lied, Cat. I lied." He should have hid Arya, sent her away to the farthest holdfast in the South. He should have thrown the man in the dungeons all those years ago, just like he had wanted to do. He should have done a thousand things; a thousand and one, but he had not. He had brushed it off as a jape. He had not believed in the truth of his words just because Ned had not seen him for ten years. But it was only because he had kept his word, Ned realized with distress. He had come to her when she was a woman grown and taken her away without anyone's knowledge. He had done exactly what he had claimed to do, unlike Ned. And unlike Ned, he had Arya, while Ned was only left with one more ghost that would haunt his nights forever, Arya's smiling face now a constant companion of Lyanna's, carved forever into his memory as a sign of his defeat, of how he had failed them both.____

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If there was a scale for how much selfish and obsessive Jon could get for Arya, I think I not-so-accidentally stepped on it and broke it. Also, this is not the peak of it. Bear with me ;)  
> I really hope you enjoyed.
> 
> [P.S. Can I just wholeheartedly thank mysticalmuddle for bringing me out of the months long worth of writer's block with her lovely, lovely comment<3 she gave me the push I needed. So grateful.]


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